Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 14.djvu/690

* NOBILITY. 590 NOBLE. tion of the word), who are members of the Upper House of rarliainent. See Pabliament. The once powerful feudal nobility of l'"rance had been reduced in the time of Louis Xl'. to a mere arislocracy of courtiers thruii^'h the steady growth of the royal power. Innncdiatcly before the Kevolution 80,01)0 families claimed nobility, many of them of obscure station, and less than 3000 of ancient lineage. The Kevolu- tion overthrew all distinction of rank. On June 18, 1790, the National Assenddy decreed that hereditary nobility was an institution incompati- ble with a free State, and that titles, arms, and liveries should be abolisluMl. Two years later the records of the nobility were burned. A new nobility was created by the Emperor Napoleon I. in 1808, with titles descending to the eldest son. The old nobility was revived at the Restoration. All marquises and viscounts are of pre-Kevolu- tion titles, none having been created in later times. Commercial pursuits have in different coun- tries been considered more or less incompatible with nobility. In England this was less the case than in France and tiermany, where for long a gentleman could not engage in any trade without losing his raiik. A sort of commercial 'Biirger- Adel,' or half-gentleman class, was constituted out of the i)atrician families of some of the great German cities, particularly .ugsburg. Niirem- berg, and Frankfort, on whom the emperors be- stowed coats of arms. (See Fuggeb; VVelser.) In semi-feudal Italy there was on the whole less antagonism between nobility and trade than north of the .lps. The aristocracy of Venice had its origin in connncrce; anil though untitled, they were among the most distinguished class of' nobles in Europe. On the other hand, in Flor- ence, in the fourteenth century, under a con- stitution purely mercantile, nobility became a disqualification' from holding any office of the State. In order to be admitted to the enjoyment of political honors the nobleman had to be struck off the rolls of nobility, and an unpopular ple- lieian was sometimes ennobled in order to dis- franchise him. A little later there grew up, side by side with the old nobility, a race of plebeian nobles— as the Kieci. the Medici — whose preten- sions were originally derived from wealth, and who eventually came to be regarded as aristo- crats by the democratic party. In Spain the term hiihilfio {hijo d'algo, son of somebody, not /Hi us tiiillhin) indicates nobility. The hidalgo alone has in strictness a right to the title (loti. which, like sir of the British knights and baronets, requires the adjunit of the Chris- tian name. When the Christian name is omitted the title sfi'ior instead is prefixed with the addi- tion of ilr. Members of the higher nobility bear the title of grandee (q.v,) ; formerly the title was ricn-hnmhre. and the ceremonial of creation con- sisted in granting the right of assuming the pennon and caldron {pe»6ii y caldrra) — the one the rallving ensign of command, the other of maintenance of followers. In cnntradistinction to the grandees, the class of nobilitV' below them arc called h>s tiliihulo.i ilr f'nstilla. In Russia what nobility existed before Peter the Great was of a partriarehal, not a feudal, kind (see Royah), but. in his anxiety to as- similate everything to n Western standard, tin- C/ar took the existing aristocracies of States quite differently situated as the model to which to approximate the fortunate of his own sub- jects. Consult: Mf-nestrier. Les divvrses espiccs de la nublesse (Paris, Hi83) ; id., Lc blason de la nohlessc (ib., 1083) ; Escherny, Essui sur la noblesse (ib,, 1814) ; Duvergier, Memorial his- toTiijue de la noblesse (ib., 1839-40) ; Magny, Le nobiliairc des maisoiis nobles de VEurope (ib,, 1854-94); Kotzebue, Vom Adel (Leipzig, 1792); Laine, Xoblesse de France (Paris, 1825-50); Langlois, Les origines de la noblesse en France (ib,, 1902); Cerini, La noblesse itllemande et scs origints (ib,, 1899) ; Stranz, (Icsrhiclilc des deutsehen Adels (new ed,, Waldenburg, 1851); Rose, Der Adel Veutsehlnnds (Berlin. 1883); Vehse, Geschiehte des iisterreiehiselieii llofs and Adels (Hamburg, 1851); Gneist, Adel iind Rit- lersehaft in jingland (Berlin, 1853) ; Lawrence, On the XobUity of the llrilish Gentry (London, 1824; 4th ed, 1840). NOBLE, no'b'l, Alfred (1844—). An Ameri- can civil engineer, born at Livonia, Wayne Coun- ty, ilich. He served during the Civil War in the Arniv of the Potomac ( lS(>2-(i5), graduated at the University of Michigan in 1870, and in that year began practice as a civil engineer. From 1882 he devoted his attention to bridge engineer- ing. He was resident engineer of the Washing- ton Bridge, New York City, the Cairo (111.) Bridge over the Ohio, and the Memphis (Tenn.) Bridge over the Mississippi: and assistant chief engineer of the bridges over the Missouri at West Alton (Mo.), and Leavenworth (Kan,), and over the ^Mississippi at Alton (111.). In 1895 he was api)ointed a member of the Nica- ragua Canal Board, from 1897 to 1899 was a menil)er of the United States Board of Engi- neers of deep waterways, to make surveys and prepare plans and estimates in connection with a slii])-canal route from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic seaboard, and from 1899 to 1901 was on the Isthmian Canal Conunission. He became president of the Western Society of Civil En- gineers in 1898, His writings include papers contributed to the Proeredinr/s of the Chicago .cademy of Sciences, and of the Western and American Societies of Civil Engineers, NOBLE, Sir Andrew (18:i2— ). A Scot- tish phsicist and artillerist, born at Greenock and ediicated at the Edinburgh ,cademy and the Royal Military .cademy, Woolwich. Ill 1858 he was appointed secretary to the Com' mittee on Rifled Cannon, and to the Plates and Gims Connnitlee in 1859, when he was also made assistant inspector of artillery. In 1800 he left the iniblie service to enter that of Sir W, G. .rmstrong at the Elswick .rsenal. There he had wider opportunities for experimental re- search, and his invention of the chnmoscope in 18li2. which made possilde the measurement o( the initial velocity produced by various pow- ders, led to an increase in the substitution of ritles for smooth-bores. In 1900 Captain Noble was a member of the comnuttee appointed by the Government to inipiirc into the prnperlies of smokeless powder. Besides foreign honors, he re- ceiveil the Royal Society medal in 1S80, war knighted in 1893, and nuule a baronet in 1902, NOBLE, FREDERinc Ai.piionso (1S32— ), .Aniiriean Congregational clergyman, born IB Baldwin, Me. He graduated at Yale in 18.58- and nt Andover Tlienlogieal Seminary in ISfil. His first pastoral charge was in Saint Paul, 4 I