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Traditional rank amongst European imperiality, royalty, peers, and nobility is rooted in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Although they vary over time and among geographic regions (for example, one region's prince might be equal to another's grand duke ), the following is a reasonably comprehensive list that provides information on both ...
Nobility is a social class found in many societies that have an aristocracy. It is normally ranked immediately below royalty. Nobility has often been an estate of the realm with many exclusive functions and characteristics.
The nobility of the four constituent home nations and crown dependencies therefore has played a major role in shaping the history of the British Isles, and remnants of this nobility exist throughout the UK's social structure and institutions. Traditionally, the British nobility rank directly below the British royal family.
Only those classified within the social class of royalty and upper nobility have a style of "Highness" attached before their titles. Reigning bearers of forms of Highness included grand princes, grand dukes, reigning princes, reigning dukes, and princely counts, their families, and the agnatic (of the male bloodline) descendants of emperors and kings.
In England and Wales, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of All England, is the most senior person outside of Royalty, and after the Lord Chancellor, immediately followed by the Archbishop of York, Primate of England. Primates (i.e. archbishops) and bishops of the Church of England rank immediately above Peers. First come the Bishops of ...
Gentry and minor nobility [ edit ] Knights and Baronets are distinguished by the use of "Bt" (or, archaically, "Bart") after the latter's names (and by the use of the appropriate post-nominal letters if the former are members of an Order of Chivalry).
A noble house is an aristocratic family or kinship group, either currently or historically of national or international significance [clarification needed], and usually associated with one or more hereditary titles, the most senior of which will be held by the "Head of the House" or patriarch.
Hochadel ("upper nobility", or "high nobility") were those noble houses which ruled sovereign states within the Holy Roman Empire and, later, in the German Confederation and the German Empire. They were royalty; the heads of these families were entitled to be addressed by some form of "Majesty" or "Highness".