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77-579: Founded in 1172, the convent soon established itself as a wealthy and autonomous local power in the Lüneburg Heath region. It recruited its nuns mostly from the influential patrician families of Lüneburg and accommodated up to 60 women over most of its existence. These women would be thoroughly educated in Latin , Liberal Arts and in Christian doctrine and liturgy. Over the course of the 15th and 16th centuries,

154-508: A patent of nobility from the Holy Roman Emperor which was granted as a matter course upon the payment of fee. In any case, when travelling to other parts of Europe for example to the court of Louis XIV , members of the patrician societies of imperial free cities were recognized as noble courtiers as documented in the autobiography of Lindau Suenfzenjunker Rudolf Curtabatt . The Holy Roman Empire ceased to exist in 1806. Although not

231-601: A "noble" or even "high noble" societies. Some patrician societies such as that of Bern, officially granted their members the right to use noble predicates whereas other patricians chose to use the noble predicate "von" in connection with their original name or a country estate, see e.g., the Lindau patrician families Heider von Gitzenweiler (also von Heider), Funk von Senftenau, Seutter von Loetzen (also von Seutter), Halder von Moellenberg (also von Halder), Curtabatt (also von Curtabat or de Curtabat). In 1696 and 1697 Emperor Leopold affirmed

308-420: A changed liturgy in conformity with the reform, and a centralized and communal intake of daily meals to strengthen the convent’s isolation from the outside world and to better control the required abstinence from meat on Fridays and during Lent . The latter arguably provided the greatest logistical difficulty, as both the kitchen and the refectory had to be rebuilt. Subsequently, the convent was incorporated into

385-429: A deep link between the convent and the city politics. Further connections could arise between the convent and other estates that a new provost held beside Lüne Abbey. The extant amounts of manuscripts originating within the convent walls suggest a thorough education of the nuns in the Latin , Liberal Arts and theology. The educational standard was not limited to the convent leaders, but extended to every novice entering

462-609: A demand over 28,000 guilders to all convents in Brunswick-Lüneburg which he threatened to enforce by a military show of force, if necessary. It did not take long after that, however, for the duke to publicly declare his allegiance to the cause of the Reformation and thus target the Roman Catholic convents directly. The female convents of Brunswick-Lüneburg, tightly knit together since the monastic reform of 1481, staunchly opposed

539-452: A dense network of reformed Northern German female convents and their male provosts, most of them committed reformers, which became a regional power within ecclesiastical politics. The territorial fragmentation of political sovereignty in Germany on the outset of the 16th century pushed the individual territorial lords (‘’Landesherren’’) into the position of the official decision-maker regarding

616-535: A judicial overtone, and was used by rulers who were often de facto independent of Imperial control, like Alberic II of Spoleto , "Patrician of Rome" from 932 to 954. In the 9th and 10th centuries, the Byzantine emperors strategically used the title of patrikios to gain the support of the native princes of southern Italy in the contest with the Carolingian Empire for control of the region. The allegiance of

693-500: A somewhat ambiguous status. Outwardly, it was treated as a purely secular retirement institution, but inwardly, the community still led a highly devoted spiritual life in Benedictine tradition. In 1711, this tension was resolved in an agreement between the convent and Duke George-Louis (later George I of Great Britain) in favour of the secular role that came to dominate also within the convent walls. Lüne Abbey would find itself as part of

770-520: A war zone two more times. In 1793, a French army marched through nearby territory during the First Coalition War in which the Electorate of Hanover took part on the side of the anti-French coalition. The abbess, Artemisia von Bock, anticipated an upcoming occupation of the convent and quickly sold a large stock of artworks, manuscripts and books from the library, some into private hands, some into

847-553: A widespread desire for ecclesiastical reform, and the monastic orders were no exception. The reform movement (not to be confused with the Protestant Reformation ) firmly established itself in Northern Germany in the early second half of the century. The emerging reform theologians viewed the rich and influential convents of the north as having diverted from the original, rightful teachings of Christianity, first and foremost

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924-596: Is an example of such closed identification. The use of the word Patrizier to refer to the most privileged segment of urban society dates back not to the Middle Ages but to the Renaissance. In 1516 the Nuremberg councillor and jurist Christoph Scheuerl (1481–1542) was commissioned by Johann Staupitz, the vicar general of the order of St. Augustine , to draft a précis of the Nuremberg constitution, presented on 15 December 1516 in

1001-473: Is now maintained as an institution of Hanover's successor state of Lower Saxony . Lutheran women still live there today under the authority of a Lutheran abbess . The abbey is famous for the Ebstorf Map , a mappa mundi from the 13th century. The original was burned during a bombing raid in 1943 on Hanover . However a faithful copy of the original can be seen in the monastery. Other points of interest are

1078-686: The Battle of Chioggia . Venetians with a disputed claim to the patriciate were required to present to the avogadori di comun established to adjudicate such claims a genealogy called a prova di nobiltà , a "test of nobility". This was particularly required of Venetian colonial elite in outlying regions of the Venetian thalassocracy , as in Crete , a key Venetian colony 1211–1669, and a frontier between Venetian and Byzantine, then Ottoman, zones of power. For Venetians in Venice,

1155-524: The Dutch nobility over a long period of time. There are " regentenfamilies ", whose forefathers were active in the administration of town councils, counties or the country itself during the Dutch Republic . Some of these families declined ennoblement because they did not keep a title in such high regard. At the end of the 19th century, they still proudly called themselves "patriciërs". Other families belong to

1232-721: The Principality of Salerno was bought in 887 by investing Prince Guaimar I , and again in 955 from Gisulf I . In 909 the Prince of Benevento , Landulf I , personally sought and received the title in Constantinople for both himself and his brother, Atenulf II . In forging the alliance that won the Battle of the Garigliano in 915, the Byzantine strategos Nicholas Picingli granted the title to John I and Docibilis II of Gaeta and Gregory IV and John II of Naples . At this time there

1309-461: The Protestant Reformation . After a fire in the 13th century the house was given to the Benedictine nuns of Walsrode Abbey who established a daughter house there, and Ebstorf became a place of Marian pilgrimage ( Marienwallfahrtsort ). The abbey buildings, dating from the 14th century and built in a North German Brick Gothic style, are fully preserved today, as is the church, which still has

1386-571: The Revolt of the Ciompi in 1378. Of the major republics, only Venice managed to retain an exclusively patrician government, which survived until Napoleon . In Venice, where the exclusive patriciate reserved to itself all power of directing the Serenissima Repubblica and erected legal barriers to protect the state increased its scrutiny over the composition of its patriciate in the generation after

1463-467: The government , in prestigious commissions and in other prominent public posts for over six generations or 150 years. The longer a family has been listed in the Blue Book, the higher its esteem. The earliest entries are often families seen as co-equal to the lower nobility ( Jonkheers , knights and barons ), because they are the younger branches of the same family or have continuously married members of

1540-820: The nobility . With the establishment of the medieval towns, Italian city-states and maritime republics, the patriciate was a formally-defined social class of governing wealthy families. They were found in the Italian city-states and maritime republics, particularly in Venice , Genoa , Pisa and Amalfi . They were also found in many of the free imperial cities of the Holy Roman Empire , such as Nuremberg , Ravensburg , Augsburg , Konstanz , Lindau , Bern , Basel , Zürich and many more. As in Ancient Rome, patrician status could generally only be inherited. However, membership in

1617-505: The prova di nobiltà was simply a pro forma rite of passage to adulthood, attested by family and neighbours; for the colonial Venetian elite in Crete the political and economic privileges weighed with the social ones, and for the Republic, a local patriciate in Crete with loyalty ties to Venice expressed through connective lineages was of paramount importance. Active recruitment of rich new blood

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1694-434: The 13th century. The original convent buildings burned down two times (in 1240 and in 1372) and were subsequently rebuilt closer to the city of Lüneburg. Over the course of the 13th century, the convent grew steadily to a number of up to 60 nuns. They were mainly recruited from surrounding noble families and from the patrician families of Lüneburg. To cover the general living expenses, the convent relied first and foremost on

1771-610: The 20th century. There was an intermediate period under the Late Roman Empire and Byzantine Empire when the title was given to governors in the Western parts of the Empire, such as Sicily — Stilicho , Aetius and other 5th-century magistri militari usefully exemplify the role and scope of the patricius at this point. Later the role, like that of the Giudicati of Sardinia , acquired

1848-489: The Empire continued to owe allegiance to the Emperor, but without any intermediate rulers. In the late Middle Ages and early modern period patricians also acquired noble titles, sometimes simply by acquiring domains in the surrounding contado that carried a heritable fief . However, in practice the status and wealth of the patrician families of the great republics was higher than that of most nobles, as money economy spread and

1925-500: The Holy Roman Empire, 1519–1556) and patricians consolidated their exclusive right to city counsel seats and associated offices, making the patriciate the only families eligible for election to the city council. During the formative years of a patrician junker , it was common to pursue international apprenticeships and academic qualification. During their careers patricians often achieved high military and civil service positions in

2002-418: The Italian republics, this was opposed by the craftsmen who were organized in guilds of their own ( Zünfte ). In the 13th century they began to challenge the prerogatives of the patricians and their guilds. Most of the time the guilds succeeded in achieving representation on a town's council. However, these gains were reversed in most Imperial Free Cities through the reforms in 1551–1553 by Emperor Charles V (of

2079-454: The Lüne provost Johannes Lorber resigned from his post and made way for a ducal administrator, Johannes Haselhorst, and a Protestant preacher, Hieronymous Enkhusen. In the following year, these measures were followed up by the inception of a new monastic policy which changed the liturgy within the convents drastically and nullified all monastic vows . The female communities were explicitly stated to be

2156-465: The Protestant Landeshoheit of the duke. Duke Ernest, on the other hand, surprisingly accepted that the convent remained a secular foundation for unmarried Protestant women ( Damenstift ), and did not dissolve the institution as a whole. It took, however, until 1562, for the convent to elect its first decidedly Protestant head. Over the course of the following two centuries, the community had

2233-715: The Venetian Republic. From the fall of the Hohenstaufen (1268), city-republics increasingly became principalities, like the Duchy of Milan and the Lordship of Verona . The smaller ones were swallowed up by monarchical states or sometimes other republics, like Pisa and Siena by Florence. Following these developments, any special role for the local patricians was restricted to municipal affairs. The few remaining patrician constitutions, notably those of Venice and Genoa, were swept away by

2310-451: The abbey, provided by the convent’s own monastic school . For the nuns, the central purpose of education was the rightful execution of the liturgy which had to be sung in Latin. In their letters, they styled themselves as Brides of Christ , dedicating their life to serve God as spouses in the vineyard of the convent. Their personal and business correspondence only recently has been brought back to

2387-522: The acceptance or rejection of the new Reformation process. The monastic convents had to fear for their survival, as the new movement set out to secularize and expropriate what they saw as an expression of the decadence and detachment from the faithful in the outside world. Lüne Abbey fell into the jurisdiction of the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg which had been the main site of the Hildesheim Diocesan Feud in 1519. The convent suffered greatly under

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2464-474: The alleged decline in education. Lüne Abbey agreed nonetheless to undergo reformative measures, and took in the provost and seven nuns from the nearby Ebstorf Abbey which had already undergone reforms, in 1481. The provost, Matthias von dem Knesebeck , deposed the prioress Bertha Hoyer and her subprioress, and installed his own candidate, the former Ebstorf nun Sophia von Bodenteich . The reform included an enhanced curriculum in matters of Catholic doctrine,

2541-593: The arbiter of who belongs to the historical German patriciate, the modern Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels (= Genealogical Handbook of Nobility ) following appropriate review by the fourth chamber of the German Adelsrechtsausschuß  [ de ] or Noble Law Committee, will include families even without a title of nobility affirmed by the Emperor, when there is proof that their progenitors belonged to hereditary "council houses" in German imperial cities. To

2618-642: The attention. Letters between the convent and their secular contacts, such as the city of Lüneburg or their estates, were written in Middle Low German which was the economic lingua franca within Northern Germany and around the North Sea and the Baltic Sea as the main operating areas of the Hanseatic League . Codeswitching between Latin and Middle Low German was used, mainly in the correspondence between

2695-423: The care of larger archives and depositories nearby. During World War II many of those archives fell victim to Allied bombing raids , and many more artworks and manuscripts vanished within the turmoils near the end of the war when German administrative structures collapsed and effectively ceased to exist. As new women entered the convent, they did not break off contact to their biological families. In that sense,

2772-512: The cities who were often merchants or ship's captains, i.e. the non-noble upper class. The bourgeoisie frequently intermarried with the families of higher civil servants and the nobility; the boundaries between the groups were not sharp. Ebstorf Abbey Ebstorf Abbey ( German : Abtei Ebstorf or German : Kloster Ebstorf ) is a Lutheran convent of nuns that is located near the Lower Saxon town of Uelzen , in Germany. The abbey

2849-614: The city's commerce. But their advancement was largely limited to the material sphere. At the time this was summed up as The Roman Catholics have the churches, the Lutherans have the power, and the Calvinists have the money. Jews were in any case never even considered for membership in patricians' societies. Unlike non-Lutheran Christians and until their partial emancipation brought on by Napoleonic occupation , however, other avenues to advancement in society were also closed to them. As in

2926-465: The conquering French armies of the period after the French Revolution , although many patrician families remained socially and politically important, as some do to this day. In the modern era the term "patrician" is also used broadly for the higher bourgeoisie (not to be equated with aristocracy) in many countries; in some countries it vaguely refers to the non-noble upper class, especially before

3003-429: The convent structure changed first through the monastic reform (1481), then through the Protestant Reformation but was never resolved. Lüne Abbey was founded in 1172 by a small community of no more than 10 noblewomen from Nordborstel . The group, led by Hildeswidis von Marcboldestorpe , was allowed to move into a vacant chapel that had been built as a hermitage for a monk from Lüneburg in 1140. The foundation charter

3080-539: The convents. In 1380 the convent was rebuilt in the Brick Gothic style after a major fire. The cloisters , the single-nave church of 1412 and the Nonnenchor (nuns' choir) are well preserved, the same is true of the former Dormitorium (dormitory). Lüne is famous for its knitting and embroidery (wool on linen). Valuable pieces (white embroidery ( Weißstickerei ) altar cloths, fasting cloths ( Fastentücher ) and carpets,

3157-434: The duke’s demands, and the situation effectively went into a standstill for the next four years. In 1529, Duke Ernest and his court decided to break up the monastic network by first targeting its male provosts. He hoped to replace them one by one with a Protestant preacher loyal only to the duke himself, as those provosts had once themselves deposed the old leadership of the convents without much opposition. Indeed, in late 1529,

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3234-497: The expansion of trade leading roles were taken by men who already held profitable positions in the feudal order, who received revenues from rents or customs tolls or market dues. Then in the 12th and 13th centuries, to this first patrician class were added the families who had risen through trade, the Doria , Cigala and Lercari. In Milan , the earliest consuls were chosen from among the valvasores , capitanei and cives . H. Sapori found

3311-554: The extent patricians and their descendants chose to avail themselves of a noble predicate after 1806 and, therefore, without imperial affirmation, such titles and predicates would also be accepted by the German Adelsrechtsausschuß if acquired through a legal mechanism akin to adverse possession , i.e., Ersitzung . In any case, in the Netherlands (see below) and many Hanseatic cities such as Hamburg , patricians scoffed at

3388-545: The first patriaciates of Italian towns to usurp the public and financial functions of the overlord to have been drawn from such petty vassals , holders of heritable tenancies and rentiers who farmed out the agricultural labours of their holdings. At a certain point it was necessary to obtain recognition of the independence of the city, and often its constitution, from either the Pope or the Holy Roman Emperor - "free" cities in

3465-419: The form of a letter. Because the letter was composed in Latin, Scheuerl referred to the Nuremberg "houses" as "patricii", making ready use of the obvious analogy to the constitution of ancient Rome. His contemporaries soon turned this into the loan words Patriziat and Patrizier for patricianship and patricians. However, this usage did not become common until the 17th and 18th centuries. The Patrizier filled

3542-598: The historiographic literature on Lüne Abbey is written in German. Only the most recent edition project, a cooperation between the universities of Oxford and Düsseldorf on the convent's letter collections, has opened up the opportunity of a more widespread reception of the Lower German women's convents within the Anglosphere . Nonetheless, the amount of English literature currently available remains all but non-existent. Patrician (post-Roman Europe) Patricianship ,

3619-467: The husband was otherwise deemed socially ineligible. Accession to a patriciate through this mechanism was referred to as "erweibern." In any case, only male patricians could hold, or participate in elections for, most political offices. Often, as in Venice, non-patricians had almost no political rights. Lists were maintained of who had the status, of which the most famous is the Libro d'Oro ( Golden Book ) of

3696-418: The ideal of poverty, but also their interference in the temporal sphere and a decline in Latin education were criticised. For a long time, historians have adopted the latter claim unaudited, but whether or not and to what extends it was actually accurate has to be evaluated individually for each convent. In most examined cases, however, the production of Latin writing within the women’s convents shows no sign of

3773-412: The joint raids of the princes of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and Calenberg , at some point even having to evacuate the convent building and move into the city of Lüneburg itself. The feud saw Brunswick-Lüneburg fall into major debt and its convents become weakened as a result. In 1525, as many German territories had to face peasant uprisings , Duke Ernest I tried to quickly consolidate his budget by sending

3850-476: The new ranks, or rewriting the constitution to allow more power to the "populo". Florence, in 1244, came rather late in the peak period of these transformations, which was between 1197, when Lucca followed this route, and 1257, when Genoa adopted similar changes. However Florence was to have other upheavals, reducing the power of the patrician class, in the movement leading to the Ordinances of Justice in 1293, and

3927-425: The new religious enemies. In 1531, one of the ducal tax collectors even went so far as to destroy one of the chapels of Lüne Abbey, consecrated to Saint Gangulphus of Burgundy . As prioress Mechthild von Wilde died in 1535, the nuns’ opposition against the Reformation faltered altogether. Although the convent was able to independently elect a new prioress, Elisabeth Schneverding, they accepted their incorporation into

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4004-399: The noble quality (i.e., ebenburtigkeit") of Nuremberg Patrizier and their right to elevate new families to their society. Notwithstanding that membership in a patrician society (or eligibility there for, i.e., "Ratsfähigkeit") was per se evidence of belonging to the highest of social classes of the Holy Roman Empire, patricians always had the option to have their noble status confirmed by

4081-453: The notion of ennoblement . Indeed, Johann Christian Senckenberg , the famous naturalist, commented, "An honest man is worth more than all the nobility and all the Barons. If anyone were to make me a Baron , I would call him a [female canine organ] or equally well a Baron. This is how much I care for any title." In 1816, Frankfurt's new constitution abolished the privilege of heritable office for

4158-459: The nuns lived in a double family , as they were indissolubly linked both to their biological family and their newfound sisters in the convent. Their regular and unbroken contact to relatives in the outside world is documented in a number of letters, especially from the 15th and 16th centuries. The familial connections between the nuns and the Lüneburg patrician families are widely reconstructed and show

4235-493: The nuns the privilege to elect their own provost. As premodern female convents had to rely on a male provost to represent the community’s political and economical interests to the outside world, this privilege of free election implied the highest degree of autonomy the convent could obtain. In 1395, the Lüne provost was granted the full sacramental care of the nuns, so that the convent was now de facto autonomous, both politically and spiritually. The 15th century brought with it

4312-479: The oldest dating to around 1250) are displayed in the textile museum in the grounds of the monastery opened in 1995. In the church on the altar in the Nonnenchor is a painting from the workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder . The high altar's triptych (carved altar) was made in the early 16th century. Also worthy of mention are the wall paintings from around 1500 in the refectory of the monastery. Unsurprisingly, most of

4389-556: The patricians. In Nuremberg, successive reforms first curtailed the patricians privileges (1794) and then effectively abolished them (1808), although they retained some vestiges of power until 1848. The Netherlands also has a patriciate. These are registered in Nederland's Patriciaat , colloquially called The Blue Book (s ee List of Dutch patrician families ). To be eligible for entry, families must have played an active and important role in Dutch society , fulfilling high positions in

4466-576: The patriciate because they are held in the same regard and respect as the nobility but for certain reasons never were ennobled. Even within the same important families there can be branches with and without noble titles. In Denmark and Norway , the term "patriciate" came to denote, mainly from the 19th century, the non-noble upper class, including the bourgeoisie , the clergy , the civil servants and generally members of elite professions such as lawyers. The Danish series Danske Patriciske Slægter (later Patriciske Slægter and Danske patricierslægter )

4543-460: The patriciate could be passed on through the female line . For example, if the union was approved by her parents, the husband of a patrician daughter was granted membership in the patrician society Zum Sünfzen  [ de ] of the Imperial Free City of Lindau as a matter of right, on the same terms as the younger son of a patrician male (i.e., upon payment of a nominal fee), even if

4620-457: The profitability and prerogatives of land-holding eroded, and they were accepted as of similar status. The Republic of Genoa had a separate class, much smaller, of nobility, originating with rural magnates who joined their interests with the fledgling city-state. Some cities, such as Naples and Rome , which had never been republics in post-Classical times, also had patrician classes, though most holders also had noble titles. The Republic of Ragusa

4697-474: The quality of belonging to a patriciate , began in the ancient world, where cities such as Ancient Rome had a social class of patrician families, whose members were initially the only people allowed to exercise many political functions. In the rise of European towns in the 12th and 13th centuries, the patriciate, a limited group of families with a special constitutional position, in Henri Pirenne 's view,

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4774-501: The raised nun's gallery. The Propstei ( provostry ) dates to the 15th century. In the 15th century the life of the nuns changed, as a result of their being placed under the reforming program of the newly established Bursfelde Congregation , that demanded a stricter way of life. In 1529 the Duke of Welf , Ernest the Confessor from Celle converted the monastery to a Lutheran convent , but

4851-653: The ranks of imperial knights , administrators and ministeriales ; the latter two groups were accepted even when they were not freemen. Members of a patrician society entered into oaths of loyalty to one another and directly with respect to the Holy Roman Emperor . German medieval patricians, Patrician (post-Roman Europe) did not refer to themselves as such. Instead, they organized themselves into closed societies (i.e., Gesellschaften) and would point to their belonging to certain families or "houses" (i.e., Geschlechter), as documented for Imperial Free Cities of Cologne , Frankfurt am Main , Nuremberg . The Dance Statute of 1521

4928-469: The seats of town councils and appropriated other important civic offices to themselves. For this purpose they assembled in patrician societies and asserted a hereditary claim to the coveted offices. In Frankfurt the Patrizier societies began to bar admittance of new families in the second half of the 16th century. The industrious Calvinist refugees from the southern Netherlands made substantial contributions to

5005-474: The service of their cities and the emperor. It was also common for patricians to gain wealth as shareholders of corporations which traded commodities across Europe. In the territories of the former Holy Roman Empire, patricians were considered the equal of the feudal nobility (the "landed gentry"). Indeed, many patrician societies such as the Suenfzen of Lindau, referred to their members as "noble" and themselves as

5082-420: The territorial nobility , but members of the minor landowners, the bailiffs and stewards of the lords and bishops, against whose residual powers they led the struggles in establishing the urban communes . At Genoa the earliest records of trading partnerships are in documents of the early 11th century; there the typical sleeping partner is a member of the local petty nobility with some capital to invest, and in

5159-405: The textile trade and the long-distance trade in spices and luxuries as it expanded, and were transformed in the process. In others, the inflexibility of the patriciate would build up powerful forces excluded from its ranks, and in an urban coup the great mercantile interests would overthrow the grandi , without overthrowing the urban order, but simply filling its formal bodies with members drawn from

5236-550: The transformation of the monastery was not completed until 1565. It is currently one of several Lutheran convents that are maintained by the Monastic Chamber of Hanover ( German : Klosterkammer Hannover ), an institution of the former Kingdom of Hanover founded by its Prince-Regent, later King George IV of the United Kingdom , in 1818, in order to manage and preserve the estates of Lutheran convents on their behalf. It

5313-460: The yearly income from the local saltworks that it held as a Pfandherr (pledge lord) since 1229. In 1367, the community had grown so influential and wealthy that it openly refused to accept its papally appointed provost Giles of Tusculum , a powerful cardinal bishop , and instead elected their own candidate, the lesser known Conrad of Soltau . In the end, both parties agreed on a third candidate, Johannes Weigergang , and Pope Urban V granted

5390-527: Was also a character of some more flexible patriciates, which drew in members of the mercantile elite, through ad hoc partnerships in ventures, which became more permanently cemented by marriage alliances. "In such cases an upper group, part feudal-aristocratic, part mercantile would arise, a group of mixed nature like the 'magnates' of Bologna , formed of nobles made bourgeois by business, and bourgeois ennobled by city decree, both fused together in law." Others, like Venice, tightly restricted membership, which

5467-458: Was closed in 1297, though some families, the "case nuove" or "new houses" were allowed to join in the 14th century, after which membership was frozen. Beginning in the 11th century, a privileged class which much later came to be called Patrizier formed in the German-speaking free imperial cities . Besides wealthy merchant Grand Burghers ( German : Großbürger ), they were recruited from

5544-606: Was founded around 1160 as the Priory of Saint Maurice for the Premonstratensian Canons Regular by Volrad von Bodwede, Count of Dannenberg , and a nephew of Henry the Lion . By founding the priory, Volrad hoped to consolidate his influence over the region. It is mentioned in the records for the first time in 1197. It belongs to the six so-called Lüneklöstern (monasteries of Lüne) which became Lutheran convents following

5621-564: Was published in six volumes between 1891 and 1979 and extensively described Danish patrician families. The term was used similarly in Norway from the 19th century, based on the Danish model; notably Henrik Ibsen described his own family background as patrician. Jørgen Haave defines the patriciate in the Norwegian context as a broad collective term for the civil servants (embetsmenn) and the burghers in

5698-407: Was ruled by a strict patriciate that was formally established in 1332, which was subsequently modified only once, following the 1667 Dubrovnik earthquake . Subsequently, "patrician" became a vaguer term used for aristocrats and elite bourgeoisie in many countries. In some Italian cities an early patriciate drawn from the minor nobles and feudal officials took a direct interest in trade, notably

5775-455: Was signed by Hugo , bishop of Verden , Henry the Lion , duke of Saxony and Bavaria , and Berthold II., abbott of the monastery St Michael in Lüneburg. The convent was dedicated to St Bartholomew and kept a part of the apostle's robe as the convent’s main relic . Although initially the convent did not follow any specific monastic rule, it adopted the Rule of Saint Benedict during the course of

5852-636: Was the motive force. In 19th century Central Europe , the term had become synonymous with the upper Bourgeoisie and cannot be interchanged with the medieval patriciate in Central Europe. In the maritime republics of the Italian Peninsula as well as in German-speaking parts of Europe , the patricians were as a matter of fact the ruling body of the medieval town. Particularly in Italy, they were part of

5929-465: Was usually only one "Patrician" for a particular city or territory at a time; in several cities in Sicily, like Catania and Messina , a one-man office of patrician was part of municipal government for much longer. Amalfi was ruled by a series of Patricians , the last of whom was elected Duke. Though often mistakenly so described, patrician families of Italian cities were not in their origins members of

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