So what is an Aristocracy?
That term might fill your mind with very fancy British people and
high society and Lords and Ladies.
And you are right if any of that comes to mind, because when we're talking
about the English Aristocracy, all of those things definitely come into play.
But it's sort of a term that requires some explaining, but today we're going
to be diving into what is an Aristocracy and how did it actually work in practice.
So if you want to hear the answers to those questions then stay
with me today in this video.
My name is Ellie Dashwood and this is my channel where I talk about
classic literature and history.
If you like, either of those things, please subscribe.
So first step, what does this term of aristocracy mean?
Well, it was actually an idea put forth by Aristotle as a form of government.
And it essentially meant rule by the best people.
Now, what type of best are we talking about?
Well, in Aristotle's mind, it would be the moral and intellectually superior that
would be deemed fit to rule the country.
Now throughout English history, do you really think the most moral and
intellectually superior people ruled?
And if not, then what were their standards?
Of course, when it came to English history and their Aristocracy, it ended up being
more based on money, position and power than moral and intellectual superiority.
These people who are ruling based on in their mind being the best,
but really because they own a lot of land and have power over people.
And so of course these best people, not only thought that they were the
best because they were the richest most powerful, but these people
also thought that they were put in their positions by God and were
there to rule over other people.
But what ever the case, they decided that "Yes, we definitely identify
with this term of the best people to rule henceforth we're an Aristocracy."
What did they rule?
Let's talk about that.
They ruled the government, they ruled in the military, the law,
the church, fashion, education.
They essentially were the top of the top of every sphere of life.
So by the 17 and 18 hundreds, this had evolved into a hierarchy that
was very well understood at the time.
So let's take a second and talk about what this Aristocracy group really
broke down into in a hierarchy.
At the very top, of course, of this ruling class is the sovereign,
the Monarch and the Royal family.
No surprise there, because I mean, literally the Monarch.
Then of course, right under the monarchs and the Royal family,
you have the English peers.
Which again, have a video on that.
Which of course are all of the dukes and barons and earl's and all of those guys.
And then of course up there with the peerage, you have peers' wives like
Duchesses and baronesses and all of those.
And then of course, as I'd also talk about, in that video, their
children also had courtesy titles.
So Royal family, peers and their families.
Then right below them was maybe the non-titled children of peers.
We also had a lot of baronets and Knights.
We have the Gentry.
And of course, as part of the Gentry, you had people who owned land.
Such as, for example, in Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennet's father
owns land and is therefore him and his whole family, they're part of the Gentry.
So Mr.
Darcy owns land part of the Gentry.
And so of course, then you have the Gentry and the Gentry's children.
So of course, Elizabeth Bennet also part of the Gentry, which
makes her part of the Aristocracy.
Now you might be saying first second here, like, "Hey, I thought the Aristocracy
was all about ruling the country.
So how exactly does Elizabeth Bennet play into ruling the country?"
And so to explain that question, we're going to go into exactly
how did the Aristocracy work?
So first we have to remember the Aristocracy, it's
this big class of people.
And they recognize themselves as a class.
If you remember my video, "How to be a lady or gentleman in Jane
Austen's time", there were all of these factors that they would weigh
and they would rank each other.
And they understood exactly where they stood in society
relative to everyone else.
And they were very class conscious.
The best part of Society literally called themselves Society with a capital S.
As in, we are Good Society.
And they maintained this by marrying within their class.
So members of the Aristocracy married each other so that not only would
their children stay in this class, but that the class itself stayed intact.
I was just reading this Georgian Era dating manual the other day,
and it gave this interesting advice to young men looking for a wife.
It specifically said that they needed to look for women who
had good social connections.
Because social connections were harder to lose than a fortune.
Essentially, you might marry this girl and she's rich, but that money is easily lost.
A bank could fail, you know, someone could gamble it away.
But if you married a girl and she had really great connections, like if her dad
was high-ranking in the church, or if her dad was high-ranking in the military, you
now how someone who could help you out in society, even if her fortune failed.
And so I think that's an important thing to remember too, is that part of what
kept this group in power was the fact that they all helped each other stay in power.
And they were held together by such strong social ties.
So now how did this class that inner married, they partied together really
exert their influence on all of society.
Well, in these different areas of life that we're about to go over.
So where did the Aristocracy exactly rule at?
So the first basic level, which we've already talked a little bit about is land.
Like literally they were landlords.
They owned pretty much everyone beneath them houses, farms.
And of course they have the sense that they needed to, you know, sort
of watch over the people on their land, but it was this big deal.
They literally owned other people's homes.
Which, you know, gives anyone kind of power.
Second up is a very obvious one if we're talking about rulership,
which is of course the government.
Now, obviously the Monarch is literally the Monarch, but then of course
in England we have parliament and that's divided into two different
houses, which is of course the House of Lords and the House of Commons.
Obviously the House of Lords, which is made up of peers and certain
members of the Church of England, that's kind of obvious, like
it's literally made up of peers.
It's a members of the Aristocracy ruling in that house.
But then the House of Commons might sound like, Oh, that's for common people, right?
No, not back in the 18 hundreds and before, which is when it was the house
of younger sons and the landed Gentry.
That's right.
Because while peers inherited their seat in the House of Lords.
The rich families used their money to get their younger, non titled
sons elected to the House of Commons.
And also, of course, non-titled members of the Gentry could get elected to the House
of Commons and they dominated that sphere.
So basically when it came to Parliament, there was the House of Lords, which was
the older sons who inherited their seats.
And then you had the House of Commons, which was the younger
sons of the same families and also the members of the Gentry.
So the Aristocracy dominated both houses.
And by doing that, they dominated the entire form government.
Including the next sphere we're talking about, which is the law.
Of course, if you remember from my video about, "How to be a gentleman or
lady," certain forms of the law were acceptable professions for younger sons.
Now, this is a very important thing to know about all those acceptable
professions for younger sons.
They did more than just say like, "Hey yeah, younger sons.
This is still a pretty good noble position for you to have."
What these positions actually did with cement the Aristocracy's
families' control on everything.
Because here again, they had their younger sons going into the law.
So of course, then the families of Aristocracy controlled the entire legal
system from the judges to the lawyers.
Next up was the church.
Again, younger sons going to be clergymen.
So these same families have a complete control hold on the whole church.
And it's interesting of how the church worked, which was where the land owners
that had these churches and parishes on their estates had the ability to
essentially give these parishes to whoever they wanted, as long as of course
the person was actually a preacher.
Which, you know, it seemed like anyone could be a preacher.
You didn't actually have to be spiritual to be a preacher back in the day.
Which is of course, one of the reasons we see this actually in
Pride and Prejudice where Mr.
Darcy was like, "Yeah, Mr.
Wickham's going to get this church on my land."
Because they had the ability to do that.
And this not only ensured the sons of these families to have money and income,
like we see in Mansfield Park with Edmund Bertram, but also this cemented
their class control on the church.
And then of course they could promote this idea that the Aristocracy was
the best people and that God had placed the classes in their relative
positions from the pulpit to reinforce their power over society at the time.
Next up, we have the military.
Again, officer's commissions were purchased with money, thereby the members
of the Aristocracy and their younger sons, well, they were going into the military,
not just as anyone, but as the officers.
Which are, of course the officers are kind of the rulers of the military.
While they would just pick up any random person off the street to be
the common foot soldier, but the officers were drawn from Aristocracy.
Of course, education.
The major boys schools were dominated by members of Aristocracy.
And then of course, Fashion.
This might seem like a much less important one then all of these other
ones I've been going over, but it's true.
The women at the top of Society got to decide what was fashionable
dress, what was good etiquette.
They wrote whole manuals by the end of the 18 hundreds about how to act
like members of Good Society, because all those other people below them
were just not behaving correctly.
And so while of course, today maybe celebrities or movie stars get to
set what is fashionable or, you know, influencers on Instagram, I guess.
Who knows these days really?
But back then, it was again, members of this ruling class of everything
from the government to what type of hoop skirts are in this year.
So just to sum up a little bit, what is an Aristocracy?
Well, it's supposed to be a form of government ruled by the best people based
on moral and intellectual superiority.
But of course in English history it evolved into rule by the people who
owned the most land, had the most power and managed to stay within their
social class by social networking, intermarrying, and making sure their
younger sons went into professions that gave them power over almost
every major aspect of English Society.
I'm going to be doing a video coming up soon on pretty much what happened
to the system, because of course the British Aristocracy is still very
much in existence, but we do see that it's not exactly at the height
of its power that it used to be.
And how exactly did that happen?
Well, that is a topic for another video I'm going to be doing very soon.
So make sure to subscribe if you have not already.
So you can see that too.
Anyway, again, my name is Ellie Dashwood and this is my channel, were I talk
about classic literature and history.
And have an awesome day.
Bye!
Try and make my hair look decent again.
This is my life problem, is my hair on video.
It will look fine in real life, but then on video, I'm like what's happening?!?
Anyway, and this extra large cat.