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The aristocracy of medieval Europe was a small but enormously influential class. Even in the most populous kingdoms, the great nobles — the dukes, counts, marquesses, and other great lords — numbered only a few hundred families. They owned the bulk of the land, dominated the higher clergy, held the major offices of state, and set the standards of culture and fashion. The aristocratic culture of the High Middle Ages — the castle, the hunt, the tournament, the chivalric ideal, the courtly love — was one of the most distinctive and most enduring cultural products of the medieval period, and it has shaped the Western imagination of the aristocratic life ever since.
This cluster explores the nobility and aristocratic culture of the High Middle Ages. The articles in the related long-tail pages provide deeper examinations of specific aspects of the topic.
The standard cultural-history account of the medieval nobility is Georges Duby, “The Chivalrous Society” (1977), translated from the French. Robert Bartlett, “England Under the Norman and Angevin Kings” (2000), is the most useful social-and-political account in English. The page below uses both, and adds the contemporary courtesy books (the Italian “Il libro del cortegiano” is a sixteenth-century development, but its thirteenth-century antecedents are visible in the courtesy poems of the troubadour tradition) as primary material.
The Structure of the Aristocracy
The medieval aristocracy was a hierarchical class. At the top were the great lords — the dukes, counts, marquesses, and other tenants-in-chief of the king. They held large fiefs, exercised wide powers of jurisdiction, and often played a major role in the politics of the realm. The dukes of Normandy, Aquitaine, and Burgundy in France; the dukes of Swabia, Saxony, and Bavaria in Germany; the dukes of Lancaster and York in England; and the great counts of Barcelona, Toulouse, and Champagne were among the most powerful of the great lords.
Below the great lords were the lesser lords — the barons, bannerets, and knights who held smaller fiefs and who served the great lords in return for their land. The barons were the most important of the lesser lords, holding castles and exercising local jurisdiction in their territories. The knights were the smallest of the feudal lords, holding a single manor or a few manors and providing military service in return.
The structure of the aristocracy varied from region to region. In France, the aristocracy was fragmented into a large number of great fiefs, each of which exercised considerable autonomy. The king of France was primus inter pares — the first among equals — and his authority over the great lords was limited. In England, the Norman and Plantagenet kings had developed a more centralized administration, and the great barons were more closely subordinated to the crown. In Germany, the princes of the Empire were virtually independent, and the emperor had limited authority over them.
The titles of the aristocracy were various. The duke (from the Latin dux, leader) was the highest title, originally the leader of a war-band or the governor of a province. The count (from the Latin comes, companion) was originally the companion of the emperor, and the count governed a county. The marquess (from the Germanic mark, border) was originally the lord of a march — a border region. The baron (from the Germanic baro, man) was originally a tenant-in-chief of the king. The knight (from the Old English cniht, servant) was the lowest of the feudal ranks.
The Castle
The castle was the characteristic residence of the medieval aristocracy, and it was the center of the political, military, and economic life of the lord’s territory. The castle was not merely a residence; it was a fortification, an administrative center, a court of law, and a symbol of the lord’s authority. The development of the castle was closely tied to the development of feudalism and the rise of the aristocratic class.
The earliest castles of the early Middle Ages were simple motte-and-bailey fortifications. The motte was a raised mound of earth, typically 5 to 10 meters high, with a wooden or stone keep on top. The bailey was an enclosed courtyard, surrounded by a palisade or a stone wall, at the base of the motte. The motte-and-bailey castle could be built quickly, and it provided an effective defense against small-scale attacks. The Norman and Angevin conquests of the eleventh and twelfth centuries were accompanied by the construction of hundreds of motte-and-bailey castles across England, Wales, and Ireland.
The stone castle gradually replaced the motte-and-bailey in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The square stone keep — exemplified by the Tour de Constance at Aigues-Mortes, the Tour de Londres in the Tower of London, and the great keep of Hedingham Castle in Essex — became the standard form. The square keep was a tall, square tower, often three or four stories high, with thick stone walls, a vaulted undercroft, and a series of chambers above.
The thirteenth century saw the development of the concentric castle. The concentric castle — exemplified by Beaumaris in Wales, Caerphilly in Wales, Harlech in Wales, and Conwy in Wales — was a masterpiece of military engineering. The castle was built on a concentric plan, with an inner wall surrounding the keep and an outer wall surrounding the bailey. The gatehouses were elaborate structures with multiple doors, portcullises, and murder holes. The towers projected from the walls, allowing defenders to enfilade any attacker who approached.
The castle was not only a military structure; it was a comfortable residence. The great hall was the main room of the castle, used for feasting, for receiving guests, and for the administration of justice. The solar — a private room for the lord and his family — was a more comfortable space, with a fireplace, glazed windows, and decorated walls. The chapel was a small church within the castle, served by a chaplain and used for the religious devotions of the household. The kitchens, the brewery, the bakehouse, the stables, and the various other service buildings were often elaborate structures in their own right.
Hunting and the Aristocratic Life
The hunt was the characteristic aristocratic leisure activity of the medieval period, and it was both a practical pursuit and a ritual one. The hunt provided the lord with meat for his household, and it provided the young men of the household with an opportunity to develop the skills of arms — riding, swordsmanship, the use of the bow — that they would need in war. The hunt was also a ritual of aristocratic identity, an assertion of the lord’s authority over the landscape and the beasts of the chase.
The beasts of the chase were the deer, the boar, the wolf, the fox, and the hare. The deer — both the red deer and the fallow deer — was the most prized, and the hunting of deer was reserved for the aristocracy. The boar was a more dangerous quarry, and the hunting of the boar was a test of courage and skill. The wolf was hunted as a pest, but the hunting of the wolf was also a ritual of aristocratic authority. The fox and the hare were hunted with hounds, and the coursing of the hare was a particularly aristocratic form of the hunt.
The methods of the hunt were various. The bow and arrow was the most common weapon, and the archer would shoot from a distance. The sword and the spear were used for the close encounter, and the hunting of the boar typically involved a final confrontation with a spear. The falcon and the hawk were used for the hunting of small game, and the falconer was a major figure in the aristocratic household. The hound — the greyhound, the mastiff, the bloodhound — was used for the tracking and the killing of the game, and the master of the hounds was a major officer of the household.
The forest was a major subject of the lord’s authority. The forest law — a special body of law governing the use of the forest — was enforced by the forest courts, presided over by the lord or his forest officials. The forest law reserved the hunting of deer and boar for the lord, and it imposed severe penalties for poaching. The forest was also a major source of revenue: the timber and the charcoal were sold to the towns, the pannage (the right to feed pigs in the forest) was leased to the peasants, and the venison and the fur were consumed by the household.
Chivalric Culture
The chivalric culture of the High Middle Ages was the distinctive culture of the aristocratic class, and it was expressed in the literature, the art, and the ritual of the age. The code of chivalry prescribed how the knight should behave toward his lord, his peers, his enemies, his lady, and God. The courtly love tradition, developed in the troubadour poetry of southern France, prescribed the proper relationship between the knight and his lady. The tournament provided the arena in which the chivalric ideals were displayed and the chivalric reputation was won.
The tournament was a major feature of the aristocratic life of the period. The tournament combined martial exercise with social display, and it was the occasion for the aristocracy to display their wealth, their skills, and their prowess. The tournament developed in the late eleventh century, perhaps in northern France, and it spread across Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The tournament was at first a free-for-all, with the knights of different lords jousting against each other in a kind of mock battle, but it gradually became more formalized, with rules of engagement, designated lists, and judges to determine the winners.
The heraldic system was closely tied to the tournament. The coat of arms — a distinctive combination of colors, charges, and ordinaries — was developed to identify the knight in battle and in the tournament, and the herald — an official charged with the regulation of the tournament and the recording of the arms — became a major figure in the aristocratic life. The heraldic visitations of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries recorded the arms of the knights of the realm, and the heraldic rolls are major sources for the history of the medieval aristocracy.
The literature of chivalry was the expression of the chivalric ideal. The chansons de geste — the Chanson de Roland, the Chanson de Guillaume, the Raoul de Cambrai — celebrated the heroic deeds of the great knights of the past. The romances of Chrétien de Troyes — Erec et Enide, Cligès, Lancelot, Yvain, Perceval — presented the knight as a model of chivalric conduct and developed the themes of courtly love and the quest for adventure. The German epics — the Nibelungenlied, the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach, the Tristan of Gottfried von Strassburg — adapted the French material to the German cultural and political context.
The Aristocratic Household
The aristocratic household was a major economic and social institution. The household of a great lord could include hundreds of people: the lord and his lady, their children, the knights and squires of the household, the chaplains and clerks, the officers of the household (the steward, the marshal, the chamberlain, the butler), the servants of the kitchen and the stable, and the various artisans and craftsmen employed by the household.
The management of the aristocratic household was a complex task. The steward was the chief officer, responsible for the administration of the estates, the collection of the rents and the dues, and the supervision of the household staff. The marshal was responsible for the stable, the hunting, and the military activities of the household. The chamberlain was responsible for the private chambers of the lord, the clothing, and the jewels. The butler was responsible for the wine and the cellar. The cook and the kitchen staff were responsible for the preparation of food for the household.
The aristocratic household was also a major economic unit. The household consumed the produce of the estates — the grain, the meat, the dairy, the wine, the cloth — and it produced the luxury goods — the embroidery, the jewelry, the tapestries, the metalwork — that were the symbols of the aristocratic status. The aristocratic household was often the major employer in a region, and the lord was a major economic actor in the local economy.
The education of the aristocratic children was carried out in the household. The sons of the aristocracy were sent to the household of another lord, where they served as pages and squires and were trained in the skills of arms and the manners of the court. The daughters of the aristocracy were educated in the household or in a convent, and they were trained in the skills of the household and the accomplishments of the court — music, poetry, embroidery, and the management of a great household.
Sources
Principal sources used in this article:
- Georges Duby, The Chivalrous Society (Arnold, 1977).
Further reading:
- Robert Bartlett, England Under the Norman and Angevin Kings (2000), ch. 6.
For a recent single-volume synthesis with full scholarly apparatus, see the relevant chapter of Barbara H. Rosenwein, A Short History of the Middle Ages (University of Toronto Press, 2014).