noun
definition
The nobility, or the hereditary ruling class.
definition
Government by such a class, or a state with such a government
definition
A class of people considered (not normally universally) superior to others
Examples of aristocracy in a Sentence
The Jewish aristocracy became peers of the Seleucid kingdom.
New houses rise into importance; a new commercial aristocracy is formed.
In this way, Qwing to the dislocation of the ancient aristocracy, to the enlarged jurisdiction,of a power so democratic as the episcopate, and to the increased privileges of the burghs, feudalism received a powerful check in Italy.
A religious order, largely composed of immigrants from abroad, could not permanently rule a state which had developed a national feeling of its own; and the native aristocracy, both of the towns and the country, revolted against its dominion.
It may well be assumed that Lucretius was a member of the Roman aristocracy, belonging either to a senatorian or to one of the great equestrian families.
He was, moreover, almost the last relic of the great feudal aristocracy of the Conquest."
The discontented clergy, especially in Livonia; the towns, such as Danzig; the native aristocracy, organized in a league (the Eidechsenbund, or League of the Lizard), all sought to use their opportunity.
Thus the titular king of Italy found himself simultaneously at war with those great vassals who had chosen him from their own class, with the turbulent factions of the Roman aristocracy, with unruly bishops in the growing cities and with the multitude of minor counts and barons who occupied the open lands, and who changed sides according to the interests of the moment.
Nor is nobility the same thing as aristocracy.
To not a few it would seem a contradiction to speak of nobility or aristocracy in a republic. Yet, though many republics have eschewed nobility, there is nothing in a republican, or even in a democratic, form of government inconsistent with the existence of nobility; and it is only in a republic that aristocracy, in the strict sense of the word, can exist.
In a monarchy, despotic or constitutional, there cannot in strictness be an aristocracy, because the whole political power cannot be vested in the noble Venice class.
And, if no government on earth ever fully carried out the literal meaning of aristocracy as the rule of the best, these civic nobilities come nearer to it than any other form of government.
Where this power exists the nobility is no longer in any strictness an aristocracy; it may have great privileges, great influence, even great legal powers, but it is not the real ruling body, like the true aristocracy of Venice.
There are indeed many Mahratta chiefs still resident in the country, members of the aristocracy which formerly enjoyed much wealth and power.
During the same period we also note the development of certain families, thanks to the accumulation of wealth by trade, and here we get the beginnings of that commercial aristocracy whose evolution was the dominant factor in the constitutional history of the republic.
Besides his attack on the Metelli and other members of the aristocracy, the great Scipio is the object of a censorious criticism on account of a youthful escapade attributed to him.
Again, with the accession of large territories, the Order became a governing aristocracy; the original care for the sick, and even the later crusading zeal of the period of conquest, gave way, when conquests were gained and administration was needed, to the problem, half military, half political, of governing a frontier state.
Unfortunately, in so doing, he used phrases savouring of aristocracy which offended many of his countrymen, - as in the sentence in which he suggested that " the rich, the well-born and the able " should be set apart from other men in a senate.
She now commanded the route to the Holy Land and could supply the necessary transport, and from the Crusades her growing aristocracy reaped large profits.
In Cappadocia two Persian houses, relics of the old aristocracy of Achaemenian days had carved out principalities, one of which became the kingdom of Pontus and the other the kingdom of Cappadocia (in the narrower sense); the former regarding Mithradates (281-266) as its founder, the latter being the creation of the second Ariarathes (?302-?281).
Ostoja (Stephen III., 1398-1418), an illegitimate son of Tvrtko, proved a puppet in the hands of Hrvoje Vukcic, duke of Spalato, Sandalj Hranic, 3 and other leaders of the aristocracy, who fought indifferently against the Turks, the Hungarians, the king or one another.
The Christian aristocracy lost its privileges, but its ancient titles of duke (vojvod) and count (knez) did not disappear.
These two measures definitely marked off the aristocracy of birth from the aristocracy of wealth - the landed proprietor from the capitalist.
The nation has only a municipal organization with a priestly aristocracy, precisely the state of things that prevailed under the Persian empire.
The Jareja Rajputs form a particular class, being the aristocracy of the country; and all are more or less connected with the family of the rao or prince.
Though by birth belonging to the middle class in a country of hide-bound aristocracy, he lived to move on equal terms in the society of princes and statesmen; which would never have been the case had he been notoriously "bought and sold."
The original land-holding aristocracy, which had probably initiated and for a time monopolized commerce, was partly supplanted by prosperous upstarts, and with the general increase of prosperity began to lose its hold upon the community of artisans.
They did, indeed, represent the aristocracy of wealth, for they had to pay a subscription of four louis, a large sum at that time, besides six livres for attendance.
He had annihilated the petty kings of the South, had crushed the aristocracy, enforced the acceptance of Christianity throughout the kingdom, asserted his suzerainty in the Orkney Islands, had humbled the king of Sweden and married his daughter in his despite, and had conducted a successful raid on Denmark.
Their exclusive possession of power made the commonwealth in which they bore rule an aristocracy; but they were a democracy among themselves.
That in the better times of the aristocracy nobility was not uncommonly granted to worthy persons, that in its worse times it was more commonly sold to unworthy persons, was the affair of the aristocratic body itself.
The strictness of the principle of admission or exclusion differs at the various German courts, and has tended to be modified by the growth of a new aristocracy of wealth; but a single instance known to the present writer may serve to illustrate the fundamental divergence of German (a fortiori Austrian) ideas from English in this matter.
The elders of these groups possessed some influence, and tended to form an aristocracy, which took the lead in social life, although their authority generally depended merely upon custom.
The civil war was renewed; but Aulus Gabinius, the proconsul, soon crushed the pretender and set up an aristocracy in Judaea with Hyrcanus as guardian of the Temple.
These men often rendered great services to their fellow-Jews, and one of the results was the growth in Jewish society of an aristocracy of wealth, where previously there had been an aristocracy of learning.
The first attack upon the aristocracy proceeded from a young noble named Cylon, who endeavoured to become tyrant about 630 B.C. The people helped to crush this movement; yet discontent must have been rife among them, for in 621 the Eupatrids commissioned Draco, a junior magistrate, to draft and publish a code of criminal law.
But the hereditary aristocracy also survived, and feudalism.
It contains many villas of the aristocracy of Palermo, the majority of which were erected in the 18th century, but have now fallen into decay.
If the Roman aristocracy of his time had lost much of the virtue and of the governing qualities of their ancestors, they showed in the last years before the establishment of monarchy a taste for intellectual culture which might have made Rome as great in literature as in arms and law.
Elsewhere, it was rather dashing all round with English aristocracy providing lashings of inspiration.
Again, it is sometimes thoughtthat both nobility and aristocracy are in some special way connected with kingly government.
Their authors are a natural and irresistible aristocracy in every society, and, more than kings or emperors, exert an influence on mankind.
Certain rights and privileges for the aristocracy appear to me a means of maintaining that sentiment.
But in the Venetian commonwealth the nobility was a real aristocracy.
Poland, in short, came nearer than any kingdom or country of large extent to the nature of an aristocracy, as we have seen aristocracy in the aristocratic cities.
It is only in a commonwealth that a nobility can really rule; that is, it is only in a commonwealth that the nobility can really be an aristocracy.
Both were gradually developed on the lines desired by the aristocracy, till we reach the year 1171.
As the duties of this council were to appoint all officers of state, including the doge, it is clear that by its creation the aristocracy had considerably curtailed the powers of the people, who had hitherto elected the doge in general assembly; and at the creation of Michiel's successor, Sebastiano Ziani (1172), the new doge was presented to the people merely for confirmation, not for election.
In 1198, on the election of Enrico Dandolo, the aristocracy carried their policy one step farther, and by the promissione ducale, or coronation oath, which every doge was required to swear, they acquired a powerful weapon for the suppression of all that remained of ancient ducal authority.
The, expansion of commerce which resulted from the Fourth Crusade soon made itself evident in the city by a rapid development in its architecture and by a decided strengthening of the commercial aristocracy, which eventually led to the great constitutional reform - the closing of the Maggior Consiglio in 1296, whereby Venice became a rigid oligarchy.