Patricianship, the quality of belonging to a
patriciate, began in the ancient world, where cities such as
Ancient Rome had a class of
patrician families whose members were the only people allowed to exercise many political functions. In the rise of European towns in the tenth and eleventh centuries, the patriciate, a limited group of families with a special constitutional position, in
Henri Pirenne's view, was the motive force.
With the establishment of the medieval
Italian republics, the patriciate was a formally defined class of governing elite
burgher families of many medieval republics, such as
Venice,
Florence,
Genoa,
Amalfi and
Amsterdam and also in many of the
Free imperial cities of
Germany and
Switzerland.
As in Ancient Rome, the status was inherited (sometimes through the female line as well as the male), and only male patricians could hold, or participate in elections for, most political offices. Often, as in Venice, non-patricians had next to no political rights. Lists were maintained of who had the status, of which the most famous is the
Libro d'Oro (
Golden Book) of the Venetian Republic. From the fall of Hohenstaufen (1268) city-republics increasingly became principalities, like Milan and Verona, and the smaller ones were swallowed up by monarchical states or sometimes other republics, like Pisa and Siena by Florence, and any special role for the local patricians was restricted to municipal affairs. The few remaining patrician constitutions, notably that of Venice and Genoa, were swept away by the conquering French armies of the period after the
French Revolution, though many patrician families remained socially and politically important, as some do to this day.
The patricius in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages
There was an intermediate period under the Late Roman Empire and
Byzantine Empire when the title was given to governors in the Western parts of the Empire, such as
Sicily—
Stilicho,
Aetius and other fifth-century
magistri militari usefully exemplify the role and scope of the
patricius at this point. Later the role, like that of the
Giudicati of
Sardinia, acquired a judicial overtone, and was used by rulers who were often
de facto independent of Imperial control, like
Alberic II of Spoleto, "Patrician of Rome" from 932 to 954.
In the 9th and 10th centuries, the Byzantine emperors strategically used the title of
patrikios to gain the support of the native princes of
southern Italy in the contest with the
Carolingian Empire for control of the region. The allegiance of the
Principality of Salerno was bought in 887 by investing
Prince Guaimar I, and again in 955 from
Gisulf I. In 909 the
Prince of Benevento,
Landulf I, personally sought and received the title in Constantinople for both himself and his brother,
Atenulf II. In forging the alliance that won the
Battle of the Garigliano in 915, the Byzantine
strategos Nicholas Picingli granted the title to
John I and
Docibilis II of Gaeta and
Gregory IV and
John II of Naples.
At this time there was usually only one "Patrician" for a particular city or territory at a time; in several cities in
Sicily, like
Catania and
Messina, a one-man office of patrician was part of municipal government for much longer.
Amalfi was ruled by
a series of Patricians,
the last of whom was elected Duke.
Formation of the European patriciates
Though often mistakenly so described, patrician families of Italian cities were not in their origins members of the territorial
nobility, but members of the minor landowners, the bailiffs and stewards of the lords and bishops, against whose residual powers they led the struggles in establishing the urban
communes. At
Genoa the earliest records of trading partnerships are in documents of the early eleventh century; there the typical sleeping partner is a member of the local
petty nobility with some capital to invest, and in the expansion of trade leading roles were taken by men who already held profitable positions in the feudal order, who received revenues from rents or customs tolls or market dues. Then in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, to this first patrician class were added the families who had risen through trade, the
Doria, Cigala and Lercari In
Milan, the earliest consuls were chosen from among the
valvasores,
capitanei and
cives. H. Sapori found the first patriaciates of Italian towns to usurp the public and financial functions of the overlord to have been drawn from such petty
vassals, holders of heritable tenancies and rentiers who farmed out the agricultural labours of their holdings.
At a certain point it was necessary to obtain recognition of the independence of the city, and often its constitution, from either the Pope or the
Holy Roman Emperor - "free" cities in the Empire continued to owe allegiance to the Emperor, but without any intermediate rulers.
In the late Middle Ages and early modern period patricians also acquired noble titles, sometimes simply by acquiring domains in the surrounding
contado that carried a heritable
fief. However in practice the status and wealth of the patrician families of the great republics was higher than that of most nobles, as
money economy spread and the profitability and prerogatives of land-holding eroded, and they were accepted as of similar status. The Republic of Genoa had a separate class, much smaller, of nobility, originating with rural magnates who joined their interests with the fledgling city-state. Some cities, such as
Naples and
Rome, which had never been republics, also had patrician classes, though most holders also had noble titles.
Subsequently "patrician" became a vaguer term used for
aristocrats and elite
bourgeoisie in many countries.
Transformations within patriciates
In some Italian cities an early patriciate drawn from the minor nobles and feudal officials took a direct interest in trade, notably the textile trade and the long-distance trade in spices and luxuries as it expanded, and were transformed in the process. In others, the inflexibility of the patriciate would build up powerful forces excluded from its ranks, and in an urban coup the great mercantile interests would overthrow the
grandi, without overthrowing the urban order, but simply filling its formal bodies with members drawn from the new ranks, or rewriting the constitution to allow more power to the "populo". Florence, in 1244, came rather late in the peak period of these transformations, which was between 1197, when
Lucca followed this route, and 1257, when Genoa adopted similar changes. However Florence was to have other upheavals, reducing the power of the patrician class, in the movement leading to the
Ordinances of Justice in 1293, and the
Revolt of the Ciompi in 1378.
Of the major republics, only Venice managed to retain an exclusively patrician government, which survived until Napoleon. In Venice, where the exclusive patritiate reserved to itself all power of directing the
Serenissima Repubblica and erected legal barriers to protect the state increased its scrutiny over the composition of its patriciate in the generation after the
Battle of Chioggia. Venetians with a disputed claim to the patriciate were required to present to the
avogadori di commun established to adjudicate such claims a genealogy called a
prova di nobiltà, a "test of nobility". This was patricularly required of Venetian colonial elite in outlying regions of the Venetian
thalassocracy, as in Crete, a key Venetian colony 1211-1669, and a frontier between Venetian and Byzantine, then Ottoman, zones of power. For Venetians in Venice, the
prova di nobiltà was simply a
pro forma rite of passage to adulthood, attested by family and neighbors; for the colonial Venetian elite in Crete the political and economic privileges weighed with the social ones, and for the Republic, a local patriciate in Crete with loyalty ties to Venice expressed through connective lineages was of paramount importance.
Recruitment to patriciates
Active recruitment of rich new blood was also a character of some more flexible patriciates., which drew in members of the mercantile elite, through
ad hoc partnerships in ventures, which became more permanently cemented by marriage alliances. "In such cases an upper group, part feudal-aristocratic, part mercantile would arise, a group of mixed nature like the 'magnates' of Bologna,formed of nobles made
bourgeois by business, and
bourgeois ennobled by city decree, both fused together in law." Others, like Venice, tightly restricted membership, which was closed in 1297, though some families, the "case nuove" or "new houses" were allowed to join in the 14th century, after which membership was frozen.
German cities of the Holy Roman Empire
Beginning in the 11th century, a privileged class which much later came to be called
Patrizier formed in the German-speaking
imperial cities. Besides wealthy merchant
burghers, they were recruited from the ranks of
imperial knights, administrators and
ministeriales; the latter two groups were accepted even when they were not freemen. German medieval patricians did not refer to themselves as such. Instead, they would point to their belonging to certain families or "houses", as documented for
Cologne,
Frankfurt am Main and
Nuremberg, among other cities. The use of the word
Patrizier to refer to the most privileged segment of urban society dates back not to the Middle Ages but to the Renaissance. In 1516 the Nuremberg councillor and jurist Dr. Christoph Scheuerl (1481–1542) was commissioned by Dr. Johann Staupitz, the vicar general of the
order of St. Augustine, to draft a précis of the Nuremberg constitution, presented on 15 December 1516 in the form of a letter. Because the letter was composed in Latin, Scheuerl referred to the Nuremberg "houses" as "patricii", making ready use of the obvious analogy to the constitution of ancient Rome. His contemporaries soon turned this into the loan words
Patriziat and
Patrizier for patricianship and patricians. However, this usage did not become common until the 17th and 18th centuries.
The
Patrizier filled the seats of town councils and appropriated other important civic offices to themselves. They tried to establish their exclusive right to these offices, making the
Patrizier the only families eligible for election to the town council. For this purpose they assembled in guilds and asserted a hereditary claim to the coveted offices. In Frankfurt the Patrizier societies began to bar admittance of new families in the second half of the 16th century. The industrious
Calvinist refugees from the southern Netherlands made substantial contributions to the city's commerce. But their advancement was largely limited to the material sphere. At the time this was summed up as, Jews were in any case never even considered for membership in
Patrizier societies. Unlike non-Lutheran Christians and until their partial emancipation brought on by Napoleonic occupation, however, other avenues to advancement in society were also closed to them.
As in the Italian republics, this was opposed by the craftsmen who were organized in guilds of their own (
Zünfte). In the 13th century they began to challenge the prerogatives of the Patrizier and their guilds. Most of the time the
Zünfte succeeded in achieving representation on a town's council. In Cologne, the city's entire administration was adapted to the constitution of the
Zünfte. In contrast, the
Patriziat managed to preserve its dominance in
Augsburg, Nuremberg, Frankfurt and in most
Hanseatic cities.
Patrizier were considered the equal of feudal nobility (the "landed gentry"). Hence the
Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels (=
Genealogical Handbook of Nobility) has always included families even without a title of nobility if there is proof that their progenitors belonged to hereditary "council houses" in German imperial cities by the 14th century. As in the Netherlands (see below), many
Patrizier scoffed at the notion of ennoblement.
Johann Christian Senckenberg, the famous naturalist, commented, "An honest man is worth more than all the nobility and all the Barons. If anyone were to make me a Baron, I would call him a [female canine organ] or equally well a Baron. This is how much I care for any title."
In 1816, Frankfurt's new constitution abolished the privilege of heritable office for the
Patrizier. In Nuremberg, successive reforms first curtailed the
Patrizier privileges (1794) and then effectively abolished them (1808), although they retained some vestiges of power until 1848.
Patricianship in the Netherlands
The Netherlands also knows a patriciate. It consists of extremely old and or well known
Dutch families. These are registered in
Nederland's Patriciaat colloquially called 'The Blue Book'. To be eligible for entry families must have played an active and important role in
Dutch society, fulfilling high positions in the
government, in prestigious commissions and in other prominent public posts for over six generations or 150 years.
The longer a family has been listed in the Blue Book the higher its esteem. The earliest entries are often families seen as coequal to the high
nobility (
barons and
counts), because they are the younger branches of the same family or have continuously married members of the
Dutch nobility over a long period of time.
These are 'regentenfamilies' whose forefathers were active in the administration of town councils, counties or the country itself during the
Dutch Republic. Some of these families declined enoblement because they did not keep a
title in such high regard. At the end of the 19th century they still proudly called themselves "patriciers". Other families belong to the patriciate because they are held in the same regard and respect as the
nobility but for certain reasons never where ennobled. Even within the same important families there can be branches with and without noble titles.
The noble position of the lowest rank of the
Dutch nobility;
jonkheer, untitled nobility, could be seen as coequal to the average non-noble patrician family because the lower nobility in the Netherlands is becoming more common and less
noble and is taking the form of the
bourgeois, upper middleclass instead of the upper-class.
Patrician families in the Netherlands include
- Quarles van Ufford (one branch, of which is related to the actress Audrey Hepburn), and
- d'Abo (family producing two actresses and one musician
- * Olivia D'Abo, actress, (daughter of Mike D'Abo below), and
- Kolff, also: Van Breda Kolff, Kolff van Oosterwijk, Van Santen Kolff
See also
