Question

How did the power of the nobility evolve during the Middle Ages?

Answer 1

Respuesta:

Although the concept of aristocracy has changed over time so

that it is hardly possible to compare the characteristics of the elites of Antiquity with those of the

Modern age, the truth is that every society has generated its own ruling minorities and

it has endowed with a particular social, religious or legal configuration. We could list several

defining categories of aristocracy in the Maxweberian sociological style, but we must choose

for a conceptualization that reflects as simply as possible the historical reality of the

Medieval Europe.

 In this sense, we must specify that it would be possible to distinguish several classes or categories of

dignity or nobility. There is a de facto aristocracy (be it religious, social, political, etc.), which

no legal recognition or privilege is raised or entailed. There is also a

aristocracy of law, when such recognition for social, religious, military or

economic, a series of legal privileges are linked, whether life or conditioned to

exercise of a function. There is also a blood aristocracy if such status is allowed

privileged social can be transmitted to successors. In parallel, the aristocracy can be

titled if, in addition, such condition is linked to a specific honor or dignity (either with character

for life or transferable to the heirs).

 The concept and origin of the medieval nobility remains a question debated by the

current historiography1

. However, when dealing in these pages with the origin of the medieval nobility,

even though we will limit ourselves to stating the requirements or characteristics of the Hispanic nobility

Early medieval, we have to make some brief references to the reorganization process of the

aristocracies occurred in since ancient times, passing through Carolingian and later Europe

feudal period, since medieval Spain is heir to a cultural system made up of

various traditions that have been incorporated successively (the Roman, Christian tradition,

German and, in its measure, the Muslim).