page_title: French nobility
section_title: Privileges
hierarchical_section_title: French nobility / Privileges
caption_attribution_description: English: Signet ring bearing the arms of the Baronnet family&#160;; goldsmith&#160;: Jean-Pierre Gautheron, Paris Français&#160;: Chevalière aux armes de la famille Baronnet&#160;; orfèvre&#160;: Jean-Pierre Gautheron, Paris Русский: Перстень-печатка с гербом семьи Бароннетов; ювелир Жан-Пьер Готерон, Париж Most of the time, the usage of coats of arms is governed by legal restrictions, independent of the status of the depiction shown here. A coat of arms represents its owner. Though it can be freely represented, it cannot be appropriated, or used in such a way as to create a confusion with or a prejudice to its owner.
context_page_description: The French nobility was a privileged social class in France during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period to the revolution in 1790. The nobility was revived in 1805 with limited rights as a titled elite class from the First Empire to the fall of the July Monarchy in 1848, when all privileges were permanently abolished. Hereditary titles, without privileges, continued to be granted until the Second Empire fell in 1870. They survive among their descendants as a social convention and as part of the legal name of the corresponding individuals.
  In the political system of pre-Revolutionary France, the nobility made up the Second Estate of the Estates General. Although membership in the noble class was mainly inherited, it was not a fully closed order. New individuals were appointed to the nobility by the monarchy, or they could purchase rights and titles, or join by marriage.
  Sources differ about the actual number of nobles in France; however, proportionally, it was among the smallest noble classes in Europe.
context_section_description: The French nobility had specific legal and financial rights and prerogatives. The first official list of these prerogatives was established relatively late, under Louis XI after 1440, and included the right to hunt, to wear a sword and, in principle, to possess a seigneurie (land to which certain feudal rights and dues were attached). Nobles were also granted an exemption from paying the taille, except for non-noble lands they might possess in some regions of France. Furthermore, certain ecclesiastic, civic, and military positions were reserved for nobles. These feudal privileges are often termed droits de féodalité dominante.
  With the exception of a few isolated cases, serfdom had ceased to exist in France by the 15th century. In early modern France, nobles nevertheless maintained a great number of seigneurial privileges over the free peasants that worked lands under their control. They could, for example, levy the cens tax, an annual tax on lands leased or held by vassals. Nobles could also charge banalités for the right to use the lord's mills, ovens, or wine presses. Alternatively, a noble could demand a portion of vassals' harvests in return for permission to farm land he owned. Nobles also maintained certain judicial rights over their vassals, although with the rise of the modern state many of these privileges had passed to state control, leaving rural nobility with only local police functions and judicial control over violation of their seigneurial rights.
  In the 17th century this seigneurial system was established in France's North American possessions.
caption: A signet ring with coat of arms
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