As a hereditary class the nobility, for reasons which were both genetic and cultural, fell victim to the classic phenomenon of extinction of the line. Historians have sought to measure this either on a regional basis or by confining themselves to the better-documented though narrower world of the magnates. In the period 1300—1500 the proportion of English lords whose line became extinct was 27 per cent every quarter of a century (if one defines extinction as having only daughters, even if nephews are living). Of the 136 barons summoned to parliament in December 1299, only sixteen had male descendants in 1500. In Scotland, using the same terms of reference, the rate of extinction of families of dukes and earls in the fifteenth century varied from 17 per cent to 39 per cent (always calculated in spans of twenty-five years). Comparable figures have been suggested for the entire nobility of a few French regions, the most reliable study relating to the county of Forez. In Germany, the trend was similar: of 138 noble Bavarian families qualified for tournaments (Turnieradel) known in 1440, only sixty-eight remained in 1500. In the district of Olpe in Westphalia, of the forty noble families known in the fourteenth century, only twenty survived in the fifteenth. This process of attrition was all the more unfortunate in that it affected a class which, by definition, was extremely preoccupied with the survival of its lineage, its estates, its name and its coat of arms. It is a well-known fact that all kinds of legal arrangements were preserved or initiated (including different versions of the law of primogeniture: majoratus, entailments) in order to ensure that families should continue to prosper. It is well known, too, that the nobility’s matrimonial schemes bore witness to a keen vigilance on its part. In Spain a noble house united several families under the protection of the pariente mayor who, as head of the senior branch, controlled the entierro (family tomb), ecclesiastical patronage, as well as the principal seat, or casa solar. If, in spite of the obsession with survival peculiar to the noble mentality, levels of extinction were really as high as suggested above, many historians see this as overwhelming evidence that the class was in the grip of a serious crisis. This opinion is reinforced by the fact that although this must have led to a considerable transfer of riches, particularly in property — to whose profit? — there are no clear indications of a percentage decrease in the noble population between 1400 and 1500. It is likely, then, that there was a substantial influx of new members during these years, a situation which was bound to cause problems in a culture in which ancestry played so important a part.
This interpretation of the evidence, however, does require qualification, and the following points may be made. By studying individual families, demographers have been led to observe that within any group of people the incidence of family extinction is comparable, irrespective of social status. Secondly, is it not the characteristic of the ruling class (and the nobility had pretensions to be such a class) to exclude those of its members who fall below standard? Thirdly, the historian’s habitual practice of omitting daughters from the equation doubles the rate of extinction. It should also be remembered that, in any event, this phenomenon was not exclusive to the fifteenth century: in terms of the nobility, the law of extinction seems to hold good for every era. Finally, in the light of specialised research, it appears highly unlikely that every twenty-five years between 25 per cent and 30 per cent of noble wealth (namely lordships) should have changed hands to the benefit of either favourably placed nobles (including the king or prince), or of the Church, or of nonnobles.
In any event, the important point is to understand how such extinction occurred. The example of the English and Scottish peerage shows that extinction could be widespread, even if the reasons were in no sense economic. It was not through poverty that a particular English earl’s family disappeared; it can only have been the result of natural, genetic factors. After all, by this same criterion the line of France’s kings died out in 1328,1498 and 1515 — three times within two centuries.
Be that as it may, when the nobility is viewed as a whole, economic factors did come into play. Almost everywhere in Europe society looked upon an impoverished nobleman as an aberration; a noble, it was accepted, must have the means of maintaining his ‘estate’. Moreover, a fact more pronounced in some countries than in others, nobility was incompatible, in reality or by law, with the practice of many professions. Nobles everywhere had to have landed revenue, a notoriously unreliable source of income, especially in this period. Here the spectre of derogeance raises its head. For fiscal reasons this phenomenon was particularly severe and widespread in France. Strangely, the term has no equivalent in other European languages and is therefore untranslatable, although traces of the idea were to be found, in both attitudes of mind and in actual behaviour, more or less everywhere.
In England admission to the nobility was strictly controlled by the crown, but the same was not true in the case of the gentry, who were distinguished by the right to bear arms (a gentleman was, by definition, armigerous) and by the right to the titles ‘sir’, ‘esquire’ or ‘gentleman’ (the term ‘gentilman’ is said to have first come into use at the beginning of the fifteenth century to denote an ‘estate’ or ‘rank’ in society; its first appearance in a funerary description dates from the middle of the century). To be a gentleman, or to be recognized as such, presupposed a certain wealth, above all from landed revenues (£10 per annum for a mere gentleman, £20 for an esquire, £40 for a knight) and, where appropriate, participation in a reputable profession, such as service of the king, a magnate, a bishop, or a town, service in the legal or even the medical profession, political or administrative responsibilities, large-scale commercial activities, but not direct working on the land or domestic tasks or craftsmen’s trades. Those wishing to preserve or raise their social standing were well advised to practise their profession (even though a reputable one) only intermittently, or through an intermediary.
In the greater part of France (a case apart was the duchy of Brittany, where there was the concept of ‘dormant’ nobility, allowing a noble to suspend his noble status for as long as it took him to restore his fortunes by means of activities involving derogeance) the main issue was whether nobility was compatible with trade, including participation in large-scale enterprise. A noble could, of course, sell his produce, or have it sold, cultivate his lands himself (if necessary putting his hand to the plough; the petty Breton squires of modern times are in this tradition), engage in various legal professions, take service under the king or prince, or invest capital in commercial ventures such as shipping or the leasing of livestock. Even so he could not be either an inn-keeper or a reputable tradesman. Clearly this limited money-making opportunities, with the result that living as a noble did not necessarily imply living off ample means. Studies focused on Burgundy, Auvergne, Bourbonnais, among other regions, at the end of the fifteenth century reveal the existence there of a whole army of very humble squires, the mirror image of the impoverished clergy mentioned in many sources. There was even the notion of shameful, or concealed poverty. Wills demonstrate how legacies were made in favour of ‘poor young women, waiting to be married’ who, without this chance windfall, risked remaining unmarried for ever. During the turmoil of the Hundred Years War many gentlemen had to resign themselves to taking up professions that were considered demeaning; problems then arose when they tried to retrieve their noble status and, in particular, their fiscal privileges.
In Italy the striking examples of Venice and Genoa reveal that nobility and commerce on the whole lived happily together. Even so there was a tendency, perhaps gathering momentum as the spirit of the Renaissance evolved, that made it advisable for those wishing to be regarded as being of the high nobility to distance themselves as far as possible from daily involvement in trade. For his part, Bartolus had voiced the generally held sentiments when he wrote: ‘Whoever engages in the mechanical arts cannot be a noble’ (‘Qui facit artes mechanicas, non potest esse nobilis’). On the other hand, the caballeros quantosios (or de quantia or alardi) of Spanish towns, although the ruling elite, could at the same time be cobblers or blacksmiths, inn-keepers or butchers, while innumerable impoverished hidalgos from rural areas, in receipt of poor relief (escuderospobres), worked the land, were artisans or even, according to the well-known topos of later literature, became vagrants or beggars. In 1418, in the region of Murcia, hidalgos are known to have been doctors, tailors, furriers, cutlers and makers of carding combs.
The stricter the rules governing the inheritance of noble rank, the more widespread the incidence of biological extinction of the line. In France and Spain, in order to be considered noble, one required only a noble father and grandfather, whilst, during the turbulent fifteenth century, the odds on a noble’s bastard acquiring noble status were high. By contrast, in the Empire the concept of a fourth degree of nobility involved a lengthy pedigree on both the maternal and paternal side.
For whatever reason, therefore (and the scale of the problem undoubtedly varied from region to region), the noble class was incapable of self-perpetuation by procreation alone. In every generation there was a short-fall. Yet, in spite of talk of crises, this was remedied without difficulty, even when the prospect of fiscal privileges to come played no part in the matter. This is a crucial point that completely contradicts the ‘crisis’ theory, despite the intellectual arguments in its support. It seems as though, in the eyes of society, the noble order was the one most worthy of envy. Perhaps it was envied now even more than it had been in the previous century, when the bourgeois and popular classes, especially on the Italian peninsula and in France, had certainly called into question its raison d’etre through the doubts cast upon the usefulness of its social function. Such sentiments were to change in the fifteenth century, an era when candidates for the nobility were jostling forward in amply sufficient numbers. It was the task of the higher authorities (king, prince) to nurture and control this reaction, which affected society fairly broadly, and to turn it to advantage by means of, as appropriate, letters of ennoblement, patents of nobility, the creation of knights (hence the Castilian caballeros de privilegio) and grants of title and dignities. What was important for states was to stimulate, or simply reinforce, the idea among the nobility that it could, or should, be a class devoted to service — service that was naturally honourable and rewarding — in the civil as well as in the military sphere.