| The nobility is an important part of the sixteenth to the eighteenth century English social caste. Its evolution is the important content of the English social transformation. The rise and fall of the English nobility has always been the very concern of the academic circles worldwide.The research on the English nobility in the West started earlier and more advanced and fruitful, while there has been a big gap in the research here in China and the West. In terms of the views on the social status of the English nobility in this period, the traditional view that the English nobility began to decline has long dominated the academic circles. In the recent years, some scholars in the West have begun to reexamine the historical destiny of the English nobility and published a number of research results. Though there had been some research on this issue in China, yet few comprehensive and systematic analysis and research are available.This paper intends to examine the English nobility of the sixteenth to the eighteenth century as a whole, analyzing their composition and feature, quantity and flow, social features, social status and function. Oriented on the long period of history, the paper combines static description with dynamic analysis and analyzes comprehensively the cause, type, mechanism and rule of the evolution of nobility while presenting the scenes of noble life and revealing the interactive relation between social transformation and the evolution of nobility, exerting every means to ensure an accurate evaluation of the status and function of the English nobility in the period.The nobility is a social stratum specially defined in law. In England, the nobility refers to those noblemen in the House of Lords. The English nobility with its full meaning in law eventually came into being in the sixteenth century. Title and privilege are the two prerequisites distinguish-ing the nobility from the rest strata of English society and also the two symbols of noble identity. Though the English nobility enjoys only a few privileges, yet the existence of the privilege readily imparts a legal meaning to noble identity. The nobility and the gentry are two strata completely different in law. Therefore, any equivocation of the two is contradictory to historical facts.The period saw a rapid increase in the number of noblemen in England. Population, marital mores, nobility awarding policy and primogeniture are the four most important factors regulating the change in the number of noblemen, while the favor of the King and marriage are the two important factors affecting the flow of members of the nobility. The openness in the flow of members of the nobility is not as high as expected. In a very long historical period, the flow of members of the nobility is not an inter strata movement, but the rise and fall of status among noble families. Therefore, the English nobility is a very self-contained stratum instead of an "open nobility".In this period, many changes took place in the family and marriage life of the English nobility. However, these changes were rather slow paced. Patriarchy and primogeniture still defined the noble family life, while the notion of family origin, parental supremacy in marriage and endogamy controlled the noble marital life. The culture and education of the nobility came under big changes. The goal, content and means became drastically different from the chivalry education in the Middle Ages. As a result, the noblemen became better educated and their cultural life more colorful. Whether family and marriage life or culture and education, they all reflects the way of noble life and represents the social features of the nobility. To show off their status and authority, the noblemen built large numbers of luxurious mansions, employing many servants, purchasing luxuries and became extravagant in marriage and funeral.The English social life underwent profound changes in the sixteenthivto the eighteenth century. In face of these changes, the noblemen were not as awkward and...
|
PDF Full Text Request