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The French nobility ((フランス語:la noblesse)) was a privileged social class in France during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period to the French Revolution in 1790. The nobility was revived in 1805 with limited rights as a titled elite class from the First Empire to the fall of the July Monarchy in 1848, when all privileges were abolished. Hereditary titles, without privileges, continued to be granted until the Second Empire fell in 1870, and survive among their descendants. In the political system of pre-Revolutionary France, the nobility made up the Second Estate of the Estates General (with the Catholic clergy comprising the First Estate and the bourgeoisie and peasants in the Third Estate). Although membership in the noble class was mainly inherited, it was not a closed order. New individuals were appointed to the nobility by the monarchy, or they could purchase rights and titles, or join by marriage. Sources differ about the actual number of nobles in France, however, proportionally, it was among the smallest noble classes in Europe. For the year 1789, French historian François Bluche gives a figure of 140,000 nobles (9,000 noble families) and states that about 5% of nobles could claim descent from feudal nobility before the 15th century.〔Bluche, 84.〕 With a total population of 28 million, this would represent merely 0.5%. Historian Gordon Wright gives a figure of 300,000 nobles (of which 80,000 were from the traditional ''noblesse d'épée''),〔Wright, 15.〕 which agrees with the estimation of historian Jean de Viguerie,〔Viguerie, 1232.〕 or a little over 1%. In terms of land holdings, at the time of the revolution, noble estates comprised about one-fifth of the land.〔Hobsbawm, 57, citing Henri Eugène Sée's ''Esquisse d'une histoire du régime agraire en Europe aux XVIIIe et XIXe siècles'' (1931).〕 ==Privileges== The French nobility had specific legal and financial rights and prerogatives. The first official list of these prerogatives was established relatively late, under Louis XI after 1440, and included the right to hunt, to wear a sword and, in principle, to possess a ''seigneurie'' (land to which certain feudal rights and dues were attached). Nobles were also granted an exemption from paying the taille, except for non-noble lands they might possess in some regions of France. Furthermore, certain ecclesiastic, civic, and military positions were reserved for nobles. These feudal privileges are often termed ''droits de féodalité dominante''. With the exception of a few isolated cases, serfdom had ceased to exist in France by the 15th century. In early modern France, nobles nevertheless maintained a great number of seigneurial privileges over the free peasants that worked lands under their control. They could, for example, levy the ''cens'' tax, an annual tax on lands leased or held by vassals. Nobles could also charge ''banalités'' for the right to use the lord's mills, ovens, or wine presses. Alternatively, a noble could demand a portion of vassals' harvests in return for permission to farm land he owned. Nobles also maintained certain judicial rights over their vassals, although with the rise of the modern state many of these privileges had passed to state control, leaving rural nobility with only local police functions and judicial control over violation of their seigneurial rights. In the 17th century this seigneurial system was established in France's North American possessions. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「French nobility」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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