Social and Family Structure of the
Old Regime (18th century)
Unit 4 – Chap. 15 (Kagan)
Nobility across Europe
 1-5% of total population
 Sources of Power:
 Economic Wealth = LAND, PROPERTY
 Social Influence
 Political Power (esp. on a local level BUT ALSO on a national
level)
 PROPERTY = right / ticket to participate in politics
Commonalties among Nobility
 Political Influence
 Land owners
 Interested in protecting their property
 Interested in increasing wealth
 Almost all nobility across Europe exempt from taxes (exp.
English)
 Aristocratic Resurgence
 Protecting their class from members of upper-middle & middle
class who are climbing the social ladder
Nobility in England
 Smallest and wealthiest of nobility (400 families)
 Control the House of Peers (peerage)
 Weak control in the House of Commons
 Own ¼ of all arable land!
 Primogeniture = younger sons expanding into other economic
areas
 Involved in commerce, building canals, urban real estate, mine
and other industry
 Country Estates = local centers of society (exclusive)
 Paid SOME TAXES – helps to keep a somewhat stable
balance of power
Nobility in France
 400,000 Nobles
 Nobles of the sword; nobles of the robe
 Nobles with royal favor (18th century) = incredible political,
military, clerical influence as well as economic wealth
 Rural / Provincial Nobles (hobereaux): more like wealthy
peasants
 Most nobles exempt from most taxes (i.e. taille and
corvees)
 Supposed to pay vingtieme but generally didi not
 Nobility has right to collect feudal dues from peasants
Nobility in Eastern Europe
 Poland
 Power of life and death over serfs
 Exempt for all taxes after 1741, although most nobles relatively poor
 Austria / Hungary
 Judicial power of serfs
 Exempt from taxes
 Prussia
 Incredible amount of control over serfs: personal & judicial
 Nobility = high ranking military officers & bureaucrats
 Russia
 By 1762 exempted from military conscription
 1785 Charter of Nobles defines legal rights of nobility in exchange
for loyalty to the Tsarina, Catherine the Great
Taxation and Feudal Dues
 France




Taille – property tax
Vingtieme – tax on income before the French Revolution
Banalites – feudal dues, can also include days of labor
Corvee – labor tax requiring peasants to work on roads, bridges
and canals
 Prussia and Austria
 Robot – required service to the lord
 Russia
 Barschchina – labor “tax” = could demand up to six days a week
labor
Lives of Peasants / Serfs
 In what way were peasants’ / serfs’ lives similar in the West,
the East and the Ottoman Empire?
 Level of personal freedom
 Level of taxation / feudal dues
 In what way(s) could peasants /serfs try to improve their
situations?
 Pugachev Rebellion, Russia, 1773-1775
European Families of 18th Century
Western Europe
 Nuclear Family
 Father (26), Mother (23),
Children (until teens),
Servants
 5-6 members = 2 generations
 Married later – earn money
and learn skills before
developing a family
 SERVANT – hired under
contract to work for
household in exchange for
room, board, and wages
Eastern Europe
 Extended Family
 Lg. fam. = cultivation of
land to support landowner
 9+ people = 3-4 generations
 Married before 20
 Often forced in arranged
marriages by landlord
Family /Household Economy
 Describe the idea “household /family economy”
 Why did everyone in the household work (either in the home
or outside)?
 Describe the role of the father, mother and child within this
economy.
 Hufton’s “economy of expedients”
 Paris and London Foundling Hospitals
Commercial Revolution