Croatian nobility

Usually the nobility's privileges were granted or recognized by the monarch in association with possession of a specific title, office or estate. Most nobles' wealth derived from one or more estates, large or small, that might include fields, pasture, orchards, timberland, hunting grounds, streams, etc. It also included infrastructure such as castle, well and mill to which local peasants were allowed some access, although often at a price. The nobility held many political positions, such as a Banship, and received many career promotions, especially in the military, at court and often in the higher functions in the government and judiciary.

Baron Franjo Ksaver Tomašić, third general of the Habsburg Monarchy

Economic analysis of nobility in Croatian realms showcase various financial statuses that were almost always dramatically bigger than the governed populate. The upper tiers of nobility controlled over 90% of wealth in the country which often caused riots and tensions between the peasant class and elite class.

The noble and wealthy classes of the Croatian aristocracy had certain characteristics both directly and indirectly tied with their station in society. Many of the lavish practices of the nobility was influenced by the Roman noble practices. Its practices were not seen as vain or pretentious, but as a divine imperative to the aristocratic strata. Nobles were required to be "generous" and "magnanimous", to perform great deeds with a certain level of disinterest.

A noble's status in the royal court required appropriate and conspicuous consumption; a strict etiquette was required by: a word or glance from the king could make or destroy a career. Nobles often went into debt themselves to build prestigious urban mansions and to buy clothes, paintings, silverware, dishes, and other furnishings befitting their rank. They were also required to show liberality by hosting sumptuous parties and by funding the arts. Nobles were expected to live "nobly", that is, from the proceeds of these possessions. Any work that involved manual labor was avoided and prohibited.

First an arch duchess of Croatia, Marija Terezija, ascended to the throne as Queen of the Croatians.

The nobles classes originally started asserting their divine right to rule by assuming a saviors complex and spent much time guiding the poor and underprivileged "into the light" of their societal beckoning. However, over time and with the introduction of the French and their occupancy of Croatian high court, nobles began to view the poor as an inferior subset of people that were to remain voiceless and devout to their King. It was through this mechanism, the nobility, that the wealthier caste of people advocated for one of the first iterations of monarchical absolutism,[1][2] and required unquestioning loyalty and understanding from their subjects. With a tightened grip on the commoners, many nobles' personal agendas were issued through the people with land, statues, and buildings being commissioned under their name. The poor were via High Order, not allowed to look or speak to any member of the nobility and could be put to death or beheaded if one were to speak during a ceremony or formal occasion.

The controversial assumption of French practices contributed to wide spread political and social elitism among the nobles and monarch. The nobility regarded the peasant class as an unseen and irrelevant substrata of people which lead to high causality revolts and beheadings as well as sporadic periods of intense domestic violence. For example, during King Demetrius Zvonimir reign, he was murdered after guards over took him during the 1089 revolts and threw him off his balcony into a "bed of fire". The death was especially symbolic as the nobility of the kingdom often burned revolutionaries alive to assert their divine supremacy.[14] However, the country's nobles were so infuriated by such an act of defiance and commanded the Royal Croatian Forces to spear to death hundreds of peasants who participated in the raiding of the King's Palace and their bodies were hung on the houses of their families.

Croatian nobility, similar to English and French nobility, originated from feudalism. The relationships between monarchs and their warriors produced nobility because the rulers would promise the warriors land in exchange for protection of the country. From this derived the Hrvatski plemićki zbor (Croatian Nobility Assembly) which is the only association of living descendants from Croatian nobility.[15]

Between 1941 and 1943, King Tomislav II of the Independent State of Croatia granted about 60 titles of duke, marquess, count, viscount and baron but mostly to non-citizens. Due to the fact that the Croatian nobility was unable to secure an heir, in 1102 the Hungarian king was granted the throne of Croatia by treaty. Thus Croatia entered in union with Hungary, until 1918 kings of Hungary were also kings of Croatia, represented by a governor (ban), but Croatia kept its own parliament (Sabor) and considerable autonomy.[16] Throughout this time period Croatian nobles kept the various titles described above.

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Croatian nobility titles mostly were granted by the kings of Croatia, later kings of Hungary-Croatia. In Dalmatia and Istria several Venetian titles were granted and during the French occupation, French titles were granted and practices were assumed. Following the collapse of Austria-Hungary following World War I, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (later Yugoslavia) stopped giving hereditary titles.

Between 925 and 1102, the Kingdom of Croatia's nobility had various titles and forms of address that varied from region to region and position to position. The King of Croatia was afforded the right of choosing his royal handle, for example in 1941, Prince Adimone, Duke of Aosta, took the name of King Tomislav II upon his succession to the Croatian throne. Titles were exclusive to members of the King's High Court and included the Queen consort and the following:

1. Duke (the highest ranking a noble could receive in his majesty's court)
2. Marquess (a lineage rank through European peerage)
3. Count (a successive rank to the Marquess)
4. Baron (title of honor bestowed to a civilian whose actions warranted the title)

The titles were usually followed by the full name or more commonly by their surname. The title of a duke is the highest of the nobility. A marquess is a nobleman of hereditary rank in various European peerages and in those of some of their former colonies. A count is a title in European countries for a noble of varying status, but historically deemed to convey an approximate rank intermediate between the highest and lowest titles of nobility. A baron is a title of honour, often hereditary, and ranked as one of the lowest titles in the nobility system. A viscount is a member of the nobility whose comital title ranks usually, as in the British peerage, below an earl or a count (the earl's continental equivalent) and above a baron.

Adam Franjo Burić, a Croatian nobleman

There were multiple types of titles used by Croatian nobles that stemmed from France: some were personal ranks and others were linked to the fiefs owned, called fiefs de dignité or kraljevski posjed.

1. Duc: possessor of a duchy (duché—a feudal property, not an independent principality) and recognition as duke by the king.
2. Prince: possessor of a lordship styled a principality (principauté); most such titles were held by family tradition and were treated by the court as titres de courtoisie—often borne by the eldest sons of the more important duke-peers. This title of prince is not to be confused with the rank of prince, borne by the princes du sang, the princes légitimés or the princes étrangers whose high precedence derived from their kinship to actual rulers.
3. Marquis: possessor of a marquessate (marquisat), but often assumed by a noble family as a titre de courtoisie
4. Comte: possessor of a county (comté) or self-assumed.
5. Vicomte: possessor of a viscounty (vicomté) or self-assumed.
6. Baron: possessor of a barony (baronnie) or self-assumed.

• Buric, Bozidar Domagoj (2011) Croatian Kings: a film documentary
• Rudolf Horvat, Povijest Hrvatske I. (od najstarijeg doba do g. 1657.), Zagreb 1924.
• Nada Klaić, Povijest Hrvata u ranom srednjem vijeku, Zagreb 1975.
• Budak, Neven (1994). Prva stoljeća Hrvatske. Hrvatska sveučilišna naklada. ISBN 978-953-169-032-4.
• Goldstein, Ivo (1995). Hrvatski rani srednji vijek. Novi Liber. ISBN 978-953-6045-02-0.
• Goldstein, Ivo (May 1985). "Ponovno o Srbima u Hrvatskoj u 9. stoljeću" (PDF). Historijski zbornik (in Croatian). Savez povijesnih društava Hrvatske, Faculty of Philosophy, Zagreb. XXXVII (1). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-10-02. Retrieved 2012-07-27.
• Fine, John Van Antwerp (1991). The Early Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Sixth to the Late Twelfth Century. University of Michigan Press. ISBN 0-472-08149-7.
• "Zakon o provedbi čl. 10 zakona od 29. rujna 1888." [Law on the enforcement of the article 10 of the Law of September 29, 1888. (Law of the Croatian Parliament that lists Croatian noble families with hereditary seat in the Croatian Parliament 1870.-1918.)]. Act No. 9 of January 9, 1891 (in Croatian). p. 123-125.
• "Zakon o uređenju Plemenite općine Turopoljske" [Law on the organization of the Noble Municipality of Turopolje (Law of the Croatian Parliament on the Universitas (Communitas) nobilium campi Turopolje)]. Act No. 30 of May 1, 1895 (in Croatian). p. 199-204.