Nobility vs. Gentry

Posted: Sun Feb 20, 2011 10:07 am Post subject: Nobility vs. Gentry

I seem to have started off another storm over the definitions of nobility, aristocracy, titled, untitled, and gentry.

My definition: Aristocrats: dukes to viscounts. Gentry: baronets, knights, and gently born. Nobility encompasses both Aristos and Gentry. Royalty of course was kings, queens and royal dukes. Untitled immediate relations of the Aristos were still Aristos (e.g., second son of a viscount, etc.)

Is this correct?

The questions troubling everyone: Who was Mr. Darcy?
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Medieval & Regency Writer
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Viscountess of the Manor Joined: 20 Sep 2006 Posts: 1100

I think you've got Nobility and Aristocracy a bit muddled.

Nobility: Titled class, sits in the House of Lords (dukes to barons).

Gentry*: baronets, knights, gentlemen (and their families).

Squirearchy (lower gentry): Landed families without the polish, money, and social connections to make them Gentry.

Aristocracy (the ruling class) encompasses both Nobility and the Gentry*.

Royalty of course was kings, queens and their children.

Untitled immediate relations of the Nobility are Gentry, and part of the Aristocracy (e.g., second son of a duke, earl, etc.).

Posted: Sun Feb 20, 2011 4:16 pm Post subject:

Aha. Thank you very much for the detailed reply!! I did indeed have the Nobility and Aristocracy confused.
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keirasoleore.blogspot.com

Viscountess of the Manor Joined: 20 Sep 2006 Posts: 1100

And lots of people misunderstand Darcy's place in world (because he's made so much of by the far lower on the scale Bennetts and because he so clearly has money). Austen clearly meant him to be a VERY BIG DEAL, but he's still solidly gentry (as are all her lead characters).
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w/a Isobel Carr
Ripe for Pleasure, May 2011
Book 1: The League of Second Sons
www.isobelcarr.com

Posted: Sun Feb 20, 2011 6:08 pm Post subject:

By using Chatsworth in the 2005 movie, they raised expectations of just who Mr. Darcy is. Since his father's dead, and he's still a mister, he's become a mystery. Because clearly, he's not a Cit despite the 10,000 pounds per anum. And he doesn't have a title, yet he behaves like an aristo. He's very solidly mid-low gentry, because there isn't even a squire or a knighthood attached to his name. On the other hand, isn't Mr. Bennet a squire? So in fact, Darcy is not that far away from him then.
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keirasoleore.blogspot.com

Viscountess of the Manor Joined: 20 Sep 2006 Posts: 1100

Squire isn't an actual title. It's an honorific and in no way raises Mr. Bennett on the scale of Gentry (and I'm not sure I remember him ever being addressed that way).

Darcy is what I would consider UPPER Gentry. His immediate family is Noble (his mother was the daughter of an earl). They never spell out his father's station, but he must have also been a plain mister, he had a grand, and inherited, estate (it's described pretty thoroughly in the book), and he was able to marry the daughter of a nobleman. Miss Darcy's thirty-thousand puts her in the realm of the daughter of a nobleman dowry-wise (Duke of Devonshire's daughters only got ten-thousand each, except for his favorite, the illegitimate daughter of Elizabeth Foster, who got thirty, just like Miss Darcy).

Think about their incomes. Darcy 10 thousand a year (about a million dollars). Mr. Bennett 2 thousand a year (about two hundred thousand). So, the Bennetts are well off, but they're not wealthy. They're middle class, living in a house in the suburbs and Darcy is in a penthouse in San Francisco with a three bridge view.
_________________
-Kalen
w/a Isobel Carr
Ripe for Pleasure, May 2011
Book 1: The League of Second Sons
www.isobelcarr.com

Viscountess of the Manor Joined: 20 Sep 2006 Posts: 1100

Posted: Mon Feb 21, 2011 11:57 am Post subject: