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70-527: Chelsea Manor House was once the demesne of the main manor of the medieval parish now roughly commensurate with the district of Chelsea, London . It was a residence acquired by Henry VIII of England in 1536, and was the site of two subsequent houses. Today, the area is covered by residential streets. In 1544, Chelsea was bestowed on Queen Catherine Parr as a lifetime grant, included in her jointure. She died in 1548 at Sudeley , and in her will she left everything to her fourth husband, Thomas Seymour . It

140-491: A money economy developed in the later Middle Ages, the serfs' corvée came to be commuted to money payments. With the advent of the early modern period, demesne lands came to be cultivated by paid labourers. Eventually, many of the demesne lands were leased out either on a perpetual (i.e., hereditary) or a temporary renewable basis so that many peasants functioned virtually as free proprietors after having paid their fixed rents. In times of inflation or debasement of coinage,

210-464: A coat of arms but did not have a peerage . The adjective " patrician " ("of or like a person of high social rank") describes in comparison other analogous traditional social elite strata based in cities, such as the free cities of Italy ( Venice and Genoa ) and the free imperial cities of Germany, Switzerland, and the Hanseatic League . The term "gentry" by itself, so Peter Coss argues,

280-624: A demesne farm: it derives from Old English bere ( barley ) and ton ( enclosure ). The system of manorial land tenure , broadly termed feudalism , was conceived in France, but was exported to areas impacted by French expansion during the Middle Ages , including the British Isles after the Norman Conquest . In this feudal system, the demesne was all the land retained and managed by a lord of

350-438: A feature in the monarchies of Nordic countries . The gentility is primarily formed on the bases of the medieval societies' two higher estates of the realm, nobility and clergy , both exempted from taxation. Subsequent "gentle" families of long descent who never obtained official rights to bear a coat of arms were also admitted to the rural upper-class society: the gentry. The three estates The widespread three estates order

420-558: A feudal tradition did not have a nobility as such. The nobility of a person might be either inherited or earned. Nobility in its most general and strict sense is an acknowledged preeminence that is hereditary: legitimate descendants (or all male descendants, in some societies) of nobles are nobles, unless explicitly stripped of the privilege. The terms aristocrat and aristocracy are a less formal means to refer to persons belonging to this social milieu . Historically in some cultures, members of an upper class often did not have to work for

490-456: A high but indeterminate social status. The most common occurrence of term Esquire today is the conferral as the suffix Esq. in order to pay an informal compliment to a male recipient by way of implying gentle birth . In the post-medieval world, the title of esquire came to apply to all men of the higher landed gentry; an esquire ranked socially above a gentleman but below a knight. In the modern world, where all men are assumed to be gentlemen,

560-508: A living, as they were supported by earned or inherited investments (often real estate), although members of the upper class may have had less actual money than merchants. Upper-class status commonly derived from the social position of one's family and not from one's own achievements or wealth. Much of the population that comprised the upper class consisted of aristocrats, ruling families, titled people , and religious hierarchs. These people were usually born into their status, and historically, there

630-408: A page and squire (for a contemporary reference, see British honours system ). In formal protocol, Sir is the correct styling for a knight or for a baronet, used with (one of) the knight's given name (s) or full name, but not with the surname alone. The equivalent for a woman who holds the title in her own right is Dame ; for such women, the title Dame is used as Sir for a man, never before

700-511: A rather small group numerically, and the clergy , which were part of the so-called frälse (a classification defined by tax exemptions and representation in the diet ). At the head of the Swedish clergy stood the Archbishop of Uppsala since 1164. The clergy encompassed almost all the educated men of the day and furthermore was strengthened by considerable wealth, and thus it came naturally to play

770-514: A result of greater specialisation. The "classic" formulation of the caste system as largely described by Georges Dumézil was that of a priestly or religiously occupied caste, a warrior caste, and a worker caste. Dumézil divided the Proto-Indo-Europeans into three categories: sovereignty , military , and productivity (see Trifunctional hypothesis ). He further subdivided sovereignty into two distinct and complementary sub-parts. One part

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840-833: A significant political role. Until the Reformation, the clergy was the first estate but was relegated to the secular estate in the Protestant North Europe. In the Middle Ages, celibacy in the Catholic Church had been a natural barrier to the formation of an hereditary priestly class. After compulsory celibacy was abolished in Sweden during the Reformation , the formation of a hereditary priestly class became possible, whereby wealth and clerical positions were frequently inheritable. Hence

910-419: A thousand years Europe was ruled by an order of guardians considerably like that which was visioned by our philosopher. During the Middle Ages it was customary to classify the population of Christendom into laboratores (workers), bellatores (soldiers), and oratores (clergy). The last group, though small in number, monopolized the instruments and opportunities of culture, and ruled with almost unlimited sway half of

980-566: A tight-knit hereditary caste. In the absence of a significant native nobility and enjoying a virtual monopoly on education and wealth within western Ukrainian society, the clergy came to form that group's native aristocracy. The clergy adopted Austria's role for them as bringers of culture and education to the Ukrainian countryside. Most Ukrainian social and political movements in Austrian-controlled territory emerged or were highly influenced by

1050-474: Is a construct applied loosely to rather different societies. Any particular model may not fit a specific society, yet a single definition nevertheless remains desirable. Titles, while often considered central to the upper class, are not strictly so. Both Captain Mark Phillips and Vice Admiral Sir Timothy Laurence , the respective first and second husbands of HRH Princess Anne , lacked any rank of peerage at

1120-494: Is a construct that historians have applied loosely to rather different societies. Any particular model may not fit a specific society, but some scholars prefer a single, unified term. The Indo-Europeans who settled Europe , Central and Western Asia and the Indian subcontinent conceived their societies to be ordered (not divided) in a tripartite fashion, the three parts being castes. Castes came to be further divided, perhaps as

1190-465: Is a traditional British social class consisting of gentlemen in the original sense; that is, those who owned land in the form of country estates to such an extent that they were not required to actively work, except in an administrative capacity on their own lands. The estates were often (but not always) made up of tenanted farms , in which case the gentleman could live entirely off rent income. Gentlemen, ranking below esquires and above yeomen, form

1260-695: Is often used in English to describe the Polish landed gentry ( Polish : ziemiaństwo, ziemianie , from ziemia , "land"). They were the lesser members of the nobility (the szlachta ), contrasting with the much smaller but more powerful group of "magnate" families (sing. magnat , plural magnaci in Polish), the Magnates of Poland and Lithuania . Compared to the situation in England and some other parts of Europe, these two parts of

1330-662: The American upper class in the colonial South. The Colonial American use of gentry was not common. Historians use it to refer to rich landowners in the South before 1776. Typically large scale landowners rented out farms to white tenant farmers. North of Maryland, there were few large comparable rural estates, except in the Dutch domains in the Hudson Valley of New York. The British upper classes consist of two sometimes overlapping entities,

1400-510: The Crown , and ancient demesne is the legal term for the land held by the king at the time of the Domesday Book in 1086. The word derives from Old French demeine , ultimately from Latin dominus , "lord, master of a household" – demesne is a variant of domaine . The word barton , which is historically synonymous to demesne and is an element found in many place-names, can refer to

1470-464: The English Civil War of the 17th century. R. H. Tawney had suggested in 1941 that there was a major economic crisis for the nobility in the 16th and 17th centuries, and that the rapidly rising gentry class was demanding a share of power. When the aristocracy resisted, Tawney argued, the gentry launched the civil war. After heated debate, historians generally concluded that the role of the gentry

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1540-679: The Iberian Peninsula and against the Ottomans in the Balkans —helped to develop a sense of communal identity against the obstacle of Europe's deep political divisions. The classical heritage flourished throughout the Middle Ages in both the Byzantine Greek East and Latin West . In Plato 's ideal state there are three major classes (producers, auxiliaries and guardians), which was representative of

1610-540: The Union of Lublin in 1569, they became less distinguishable from Polish szlachta , although preserved Lithuanian national awareness. In Hungary during the late 19th and early 20th century gentry (sometimes spelled as dzsentri ) were nobility without land who often sought employment as civil servants, army officers, or went into politics. In the history of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth , "gentry"

1680-476: The clergy , or "gentle" families of long descent who in some cases never obtained the official right to bear a coat of arms . The gentry largely consisted of landowners who could live entirely from rental income or at least had a country estate ; some were gentleman farmers . In the United Kingdom , the term gentry refers to the landed gentry : the majority of the land-owning social class who typically had

1750-468: The peerage and landed gentry . In the British peerage, only the senior family member (typically the eldest son) inherits a substantive title (duke, marquess, earl, viscount, baron); these are referred to as peers or lords. The rest of the nobility form part of the "landed gentry" (abbreviated "gentry"). The members of the gentry usually bear no titles but can be described as esquire or gentleman. Exceptions are

1820-538: The rent might come to represent a pittance , reducing the feudal aristocrat to poverty among a prosperous gentry . Demesne lands that were leased out for a term of years remained demesne lands, though no longer in the occupation of the lord of the manor. See, for example, Musgrave v Inclosure Commissioners (1874) LR 9 QB 162, a case in which the three judges of the Queen's Bench Divisional Court and everyone else concerned assumed without argument that farms which were let by

1890-806: The state church of the Roman Empire with the Edict of Thessalonica of 380 that allowed it to happen. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century, there emerged no single powerful secular government in the West, but there was a central ecclesiastical power in Rome, the Catholic Church. In this power vacuum, the Church rose to become the dominant power in the West for the start of this time period. In essence,

1960-459: The szlachta , and a few patrician bughers from some cities, were allowed to own rural estates of any size, as part of the very extensive szlachta privileges . These restrictions were reduced or removed after the Partitions of Poland, and commoner landowners began to emerge. By the 19th century, there were at least 60,000 szlachta families, most rather poor, and many no longer owning land. By then

2030-410: The "gentry" included many non-noble landowners. In Spanish nobility and former Portuguese nobility, see hidalgos and infanzones . In Sweden, there was no outright serfdom . Hence, the gentry was a class of well-off citizens that had grown from the wealthier or more powerful members of the peasantry. The two historically legally privileged classes in Sweden were the Swedish nobility ( Adeln ) ,

2100-457: The Cadogan family and its enterprises have kept ownership of some of these properties. 51°29′43″N 0°09′38″W  /  51.49528°N 0.16056°W  / 51.49528; -0.16056 This article about a London building or structure is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Demesne In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, royal demesne is the land held by

2170-455: The Confucian scholar gentry that would – for the most part – make up most of the bureaucracy. This caste would comprise both the more-or-less hereditary aristocracy as well as the meritocratic scholars that rise through the rank by public service and, later, by imperial exams. Some sources, such as Xunzi , list farmers before the gentry, based on the Confucian view that they directly contributed to

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2240-546: The French Revolution), despite there being no legal barriers to land ownership for other social classes. Power began to shift from upper-class landed families to the general population in the early modern age , leading to marital alliances between the two groups, providing the foundation for the modern upper classes in the West. Upper-class landowners in Europe were often also members of the titled nobility, though not necessarily:

2310-505: The Gentry (Frälse), i.e., priests and nobles. The names of these were usually in Swedish, Latin, German or Greek. The adoption of Latin names was first used by the Catholic clergy in the 15th century. The given name was preceded by Herr (Sir), such as Herr Lars, Herr Olof, Herr Hans, followed by a Latinized form of patronymic names, e.g., Lars Petersson Latinized as Laurentius Petri. Starting from

2380-433: The bishops and the vicars, who formed the clerical upper class, would frequently have manors similar to those of other country gentry. Hence continued the medieval Church legacy of the intermingling between noble class and clerical upper class and the intermarriage as the distinctive element in several Nordic countries after the Reformation. Surnames in Sweden can be traced to the 15th century, when they were first used by

2450-692: The castes which flourished on the Indian subcontinent and amongst the Italic peoples . Examples of the Indo-European castes: Kings were born out of the warrior or noble class, and sometimes the priesthood class, like in India. Emperor Constantine convoked the First Council of Nicaea in 325 whose Nicene Creed included belief in "one holy catholic and apostolic Church". Emperor Theodosius I made Nicene Christianity

2520-437: The clergy themselves or by their children. This influence was so great that western Ukrainians were accused of wanting to create a theocracy in western Ukraine by their Polish rivals. The central role played by the Ukrainian clergy or their children in western Ukrainian society would weaken somewhat at the end of the 19th century but would continue until the mid-20th century. The American gentry were rich landowning members of

2590-406: The contrary supplied by the warlike Middle Ages, the ecclesiastical calling has by its very nature never been strictly compatible with the bearing of arms. The precept that exhorts the Church to abhor bloodshed has never dropped completely out of sight, and in relatively tranquil and orderly times it has always been very much to the fore. The fundamental social structure in Europe in the Middle Ages

2660-550: The earliest vision of Christendom was a vision of a Christian theocracy , a government founded upon and upholding Christian values , whose institutions are spread through and over with Christian doctrine . The Catholic Church 's peak of authority over all European Christians and their common endeavours of the Christian community—for example, the Crusades , the fight against the Moors in

2730-467: The eldest sons of peers, who bear their fathers' inferior titles as "courtesy titles" (but for Parliamentary purposes count as commoners), Scottish barons (who bear the designation Baron of X after their name) and baronets (a title corresponding to a hereditary knighthood). Scottish lairds do not have a title of nobility but may have a description of their lands in the form of a territorial designation that forms part of their name. The landed gentry

2800-581: The emancipation, both social and national, of the Estonians and Latvians were not taken seriously by the Baltic German gentry. The provisional government of Russia after 1917 revolution gave the Estonians and Latvians self-governance which meant the end of the Baltic German era in Baltics. The Lithuanian gentry consisted mainly of Lithuanians , but due to strong ties to Poland, had been culturally Polonized. After

2870-533: The fact that Clerical celibacy functioned as a spiritual discipline it also was guarantor of the independence of the Church. the Catholic Church has always aspired to a preponderant share in political power, it has never been able to monopolize it entirely, because of two traits, chiefly, that are basic in its structure. Celibacy has generally been required of the clergy and of monks. Therefore no real dynasties of abbots and bishops have ever been able to establish themselves. ... Secondly, in spite of numerous examples to

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2940-465: The idea of the " tripartite soul ", which is expressive of three functions or capacities of the human soul: "appetites" (or "passions"), "the spirited element" and "reason" the part that must guide the soul to truth. Will Durant made the case that certain prominent features of Plato's ideal community were discernible in the organization, dogma and effectiveness of "the" Medieval Church in Europe: For

3010-443: The late eighteenth until the mid-20th centuries, following the reforms instituted by Joseph II, Emperor of Austria . Because, like their Eastern Orthodox brethren, Ukrainian Catholic priests could marry, they were able to establish "priestly dynasties", often associated with specific regions, for many generations. Numbering approximately 2,000–2,500 by the 19th century, priestly families tended to marry within their group, constituting

3080-520: The lord of the manor were part of the lord's demesne land. In Ireland, demesne lands were often demarcated with high stone walls. Today, 24 townlands in Ireland bear the name of "Demesne", and many others contain the word. Immediately following the Norman Conquest of 1066, all land in England was claimed by King William the Conqueror as his absolute title by allodial right , being the commencement of

3150-520: The lowest rank of British nobility. It is the lowest rank to which the descendants of a Knight, Baronet or Peer can sink. Strictly speaking, anybody with officially matriculated English or Scottish arms is a gentleman and thus noble. The term landed gentry , although originally used to mean nobility, came to be used for the lesser nobility in England around 1540. Once identical, these terms eventually became complementary. The term gentry by itself, as commonly used by historians, according to Peter Coss ,

3220-521: The manor for his own use and support. It was not necessarily all contiguous to the manor house . A portion of the demesne lands, called the lord's waste , served as public roads and common pasture land for the lord and his tenants. Most of the remainder of the land in the manor was sub-enfeoffed by the lord to others as sub-tenants. Initially, the demesne lands were worked on the lord's behalf by villeins or by serfs , who had no right of tenure on it, in fulfilment of their feudal obligations, but as

3290-728: The middle of the 1860s the privileged position of Baltic Germans in the Russian Empire began to waver. Already during the reign of Nicholas I (1825–55), who was under pressure from Russian nationalists, some sporadic steps had been taken towards the russification of the provinces. Later, the Baltic Germans faced fierce attacks from the Russian nationalist press, which accused the Baltic aristocracy of separatism, and advocated closer linguistic and administrative integration with Russia. Social division

3360-422: The monarch, rise of state, rise of professional standing armies, professional bureaucracies, the codification of state laws, and the rise of ideologies that justify the absolutist monarchy. Hence, Absolutism was made possible by innovations and characterized as a phenomenon of Early Modern Europe , rather than that of the Middle Ages, where the clergy and nobility counterbalanced as a result of mutual rivalry. From

3430-504: The most powerful continent on the globe. The clergy, like Plato's guardians, were placed in authority ... by their talent as shown in ecclesiastical studies and administration, by their disposition to a life of meditation and simplicity, and ... by the influence of their relatives with the powers of state and church. In the latter half of the period in which they ruled [800 BC onwards], the clergy were as free from family cares as even Plato could desire [for such guardians] ... [Clerical] Celibacy

3500-492: The nobility (very favored prefixes were Adler, "eagle"; Ehren – "ära", "honor"; Silfver, "silver"; and Gyllen, "golden"). The regular difference with Britain was that it became the new surname of the whole house, and the old surname was dropped altogether. The Western Ukrainian Clergy of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church were a hereditary tight-knit social caste that dominated western Ukrainian society from

3570-455: The overall "nobility" to a large extent operated as different classes, and were often in conflict. After the Partitions of Poland , at least in the stereotypes of 19th-century nationalist lore, the magnates often made themselves at home in the capitals and courts of the partitioning powers, while the gentry remained on their estates, keeping the national culture alive. From the 15th century, only

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3640-587: The prevalence of titles of nobility varied widely from country to country. Some upper classes were almost entirely untitled, for example, the Szlachta of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Before the Age of Absolutism , institutions, such as the church, legislatures, or social elites, restrained monarchical power. Absolutism was characterized by the ending of feudal partitioning, consolidation of power with

3710-488: The royal demesne, also known as Crown land . The king made grants of very large tracts of land under various forms of feudal tenure from his demesne, generally in the form of feudal baronies . The land not so enfeoffed , for example royal manors administered by royal stewards and royal hunting forests , thus remained within the royal demesne. In the Domesday Book of 1086, this land is referred to as terra regis (literally "the king's land"), and in English common law

3780-524: The royal demesne, in exchange for a fixed annual sum thenceforth payable to the monarch, called the Civil List . The royal estate of Windsor , still occupied by British monarchs and never relinquished since 1066, is a rare example of an ancient royal demesne. In the Lordship of Ireland , King Henry II claimed a large area as the royal demesne in 1171: Dublin , its hinterland, the coastline down to Arklow and

3850-402: The second estate or as in the case of Cardinal Wolsey , from more humble backgrounds. The second estate was the nobility. Being wealthy or influential did not automatically make one a noble, and not all nobles were wealthy and influential (aristocratic families have lost their fortunes in various ways, and the concept of the "poor nobleman" is almost as old as nobility itself). Countries without

3920-415: The surname on its own. This usage was devised in 1917, derived from the practice, up to the 17th century (and still also in legal proceedings), for the wife of a knight. The wife of a knight or baronet is now styled " Lady [husband's surname]". The " Storm over the gentry " was a major historiographical debate among scholars that took place in the 1940s and 1950s regarding the role of the gentry in causing

3990-551: The term ancient demesne refers to the land that was held by the Crown at the time of the Domesday Book. The royal demesne was not a static portfolio: it could be increased, for example, as a result of escheat or forfeiture where a feudal tenure would end and revert to its natural state in the royal demesne, or it could be reduced by later grants of land. During the reign of King George III (1760–1820), Parliament appropriated most of

4060-448: The term has often been extended (albeit only in very formal writing) to all men without any higher title. It is used post-nominally, usually in abbreviated form (for example, "Thomas Smith, Esq."). A knight could refer to either a medieval tenant who gave military service as a mounted man-at-arms to a feudal landholder, or a medieval gentleman-soldier, usually high-born, raised by a sovereign to privileged military status after training as

4130-452: The time of the Reformation, the Latinized form of their birthplace ( Laurentius Petri Gothus , from Östergötland) became a common naming practice for the clergy. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the surname was only rarely the original family name of the ennobled; usually, a more imposing new name was chosen. This was a period which produced a myriad of two-word Swedish-language family names for

4200-527: The time of their marriage to Princess Anne. However, the backgrounds of both men were considered to be essentially patrician, and they were thus deemed suitable husbands for a princess. Esquire (abbreviated Esq.) is a term derived from the Old French word "escuier" (which also gave equerry) and is in the United Kingdom the second-lowest designation for a nobleman, referring only to males, and used to denote

4270-490: The towns of Wexford and Waterford . This region around Dublin would evolve into the Pale . Gentry Gentry (from Old French genterie , from gentil ' high-born, noble ' ) are "well-born, genteel and well-bred people" of high social class , especially in the past. Gentry , in its widest connotation, refers to people of good social position connected to landed estates (see manorialism ), upper levels of

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4340-567: Was based on the dominance of the Baltic Germans which formed the upper classes while the majority of indigenous population, called "Undeutsch", composed the peasantry. In the Imperial census of 1897, 98,573 Germans (7.58% of total population) lived in the Governorate of Livonia , 51,017 (7.57%) in the Governorate of Curonia, and 16,037 (3.89%) in the Governorate of Estonia . The social changes faced by

4410-497: Was between the ecclesiastical hierarchy , nobles i.e. the tenants in chivalry (counts, barons, knights, esquires, franklins ) and the ignobles, the villeins , citizens, and burgesses . The division of society into classes of nobles and ignobles, in the smaller regions of medieval Europe was inexact. After the Protestant Reformation , social intermingling between the noble class and the hereditary clerical upper class became

4480-435: Was formal, juridical, and priestly, but rooted in this world. The other was powerful, unpredictable, and also priestly, but rooted in the "other", the supernatural and spiritual world. The second main division was connected with the use of force, the military , and war. Finally, there was a third group, ruled by the other two, whose role was productivity: herding, farming, and crafts . This system of caste roles can be seen in

4550-475: Was home to Elizabeth I of England , as Princess, between 1536 and 1548, and then to Anne of Cleves , who died there in 1557. Other famous owners included James Hamilton, 1st Duke of Hamilton , Charles Cheyne, 1st Viscount Newhaven , Sir Hans Sloane , the Bishops of Winchester . Three houses in turn existed, the last of which was demolished in 1825 by Earl Cadogan and replaced with fashionable residential streets -

4620-492: Was not especially important. The 'four divisions of society' refers to the model of society in ancient China and was a meritocratic social class system in China and other subsequently influenced Confucian societies. The four castes—gentry, farmers, artisans and merchants—are combined to form the term Shìnónggōngshāng (士農工商). Gentry (士) means different things in different countries. In China, Korea, and Vietnam, this meant that

4690-402: Was not much movement across class boundaries. This is to say that it was much harder for an individual to move up in class simply because of the structure of society. In many countries, the term upper class was intimately associated with hereditary land ownership and titles. Political power was often in the hands of the landowners in many pre-industrial societies (which was one of the causes of

4760-469: Was part of the psychological structure of the power of the clergy; for on the one hand they were unimpeded by the narrowing egoism of the family, and on the other their apparent superiority to the call of the flesh added to the awe in which lay sinners held them. ... Gaetano Mosca wrote on the same subject matter in his book The Ruling Class concerning the Medieval Church and its structure that Beyond

4830-460: Was particularly characteristic of France: At the top of the pyramid were the princes and estates of the king or emperor, or with the clergy, the bishops and the pope. The feudal system was, for the people of the Middle Ages and early modern period, fitted into a God-given order. The nobility and the third estate were born into their class, and change in social position was slow. Wealth had little influence on what estate one belonged to. The exception

4900-409: Was the Medieval Church, which was the only institution where competent men (and women) of merit could reach, in one lifetime, the highest positions in society. The first estate comprised the entire clergy, traditionally divided into "higher" and "lower" clergy. Although there was no formal demarcation between the two categories, the upper clergy were, effectively, clerical nobility, from the families of

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