One hears this mantra of the European Nobility being too inbred, too often.
Let's think about it.
One must consider that noble marriages were largely arranged to cement
alliances. Thus noble marriages of first/second cousins were rare, in part,
due to there usually was already an alliance and another would be redundant.
(Not to mention problems caused by the disdain of the church for cosanguinous
marriages.)
Equally rare were relationships more distant than, say, 5th to 8th cousins. One
would have to travel over a thousand miles to find a noble mate, totally
unrelated in the families' records.
The higher the caste level and wealth, the wider the area available to search
for a mate.
Us peasants, on the other hand, were confined to an area of a few square
kilometers. Most had to pick their mates from just such a small gene pool. If
one was a peasant in Anjou, one could not hope for a mate from Tourraine or
LaMarche, let alone one from Savoie, Pays Bas, Germany, Russia or England.
Chances are most peasants mated with a, say, third cousin or closer. They had
no choice other than celibacy.
An added problem for peasants is that most did not know who their
great-grandparents were, let alone who might be a 3rd cousin.
Hence, to all logic and reason, peasants had to be more inbred than the
nobility. Of course, this logic no longer applies since about mid-1800s with
the incease in mobility of most people regardless of caste.
Conclusion: Until the 1800s the nobility were far less inbred than commoners.
Later, who can say? I meet people everyday who are totally ignorant of the ID
of their own great-grandparents let alone those of their spouse.
Best wishes,
Mike Talbot
European Inbreeding: Noble vs Peasant
Moderator: MOD_nyhetsgrupper
-
Grant Menzies
Re: European Inbreeding: Noble vs Peasant
mtaht@aol.com (MTaHT) wrote:
Well, but the nobility didn't so much "search" (as in rove the country
looking for a mate) as acquiesce to mates already chosen for them
years before by their parents. Noble marriage was not a matter of
choosing whom *you* wanted to marry, but your family choosing whom
*they* wanted you to marry.
Not quite accurate. Even in villages, the pastor or priest usually
knew who was related to whom, regardless of their social class. There
were, depending on circumstances of course, records on all births,
marriages, deaths and baptisms, and one of the clergyman's jobs was to
know these genealogical interconnections so that he would know when a
dispensation might be needed for a marriage. A cursory glance at the
marriage patterns of these village families will soon give the lie to
the notion that people didn't know who their great-grandparents were.
You find clergy families, farming families, teacher families, all
intermarrying with what appears to be complete knowledge of their
cousinly connections. This is particularly true when said families
ran to daughters, and in order to not lose property or the less
tangible status that came from descending from educated men like
pastors or teachers, sons from eligible cousin families could marry
one's girl and keep money and brains under the same roof. I can
demonstrate many proofs of these patterns in my own German genealogy,
from pastors to farmers to teachers to the local squires.
This I also question, based on having studied many 18th century noble
genealogies. These families were, in fact, inbred to a very high
degree. You even find illegitimate descendants of a noble family
sometimes marrying well enough to introduce their genes back into the
family from which they came via the wrong side of the counterpane.
Grant
=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Grant Menzies
=-=-=-=-=-=-=
http://www.authorsden.com/grantmmenzies
One hears this mantra of the European Nobility being too inbred, too often.
Let's think about it.
One must consider that noble marriages were largely arranged to cement
alliances. Thus noble marriages of first/second cousins were rare, in part,
due to there usually was already an alliance and another would be redundant.
(Not to mention problems caused by the disdain of the church for cosanguinous
marriages.)
Equally rare were relationships more distant than, say, 5th to 8th cousins. One
would have to travel over a thousand miles to find a noble mate, totally
unrelated in the families' records.
The higher the caste level and wealth, the wider the area available to search
for a mate.
Well, but the nobility didn't so much "search" (as in rove the country
looking for a mate) as acquiesce to mates already chosen for them
years before by their parents. Noble marriage was not a matter of
choosing whom *you* wanted to marry, but your family choosing whom
*they* wanted you to marry.
Us peasants, on the other hand, were confined to an area of a few square
kilometers. Most had to pick their mates from just such a small gene pool. If
one was a peasant in Anjou, one could not hope for a mate from Tourraine or
LaMarche, let alone one from Savoie, Pays Bas, Germany, Russia or England.
Chances are most peasants mated with a, say, third cousin or closer. They had
no choice other than celibacy.
An added problem for peasants is that most did not know who their
great-grandparents were, let alone who might be a 3rd cousin.
Not quite accurate. Even in villages, the pastor or priest usually
knew who was related to whom, regardless of their social class. There
were, depending on circumstances of course, records on all births,
marriages, deaths and baptisms, and one of the clergyman's jobs was to
know these genealogical interconnections so that he would know when a
dispensation might be needed for a marriage. A cursory glance at the
marriage patterns of these village families will soon give the lie to
the notion that people didn't know who their great-grandparents were.
You find clergy families, farming families, teacher families, all
intermarrying with what appears to be complete knowledge of their
cousinly connections. This is particularly true when said families
ran to daughters, and in order to not lose property or the less
tangible status that came from descending from educated men like
pastors or teachers, sons from eligible cousin families could marry
one's girl and keep money and brains under the same roof. I can
demonstrate many proofs of these patterns in my own German genealogy,
from pastors to farmers to teachers to the local squires.
Hence, to all logic and reason, peasants had to be more inbred than the
nobility. Of course, this logic no longer applies since about mid-1800s with
the incease in mobility of most people regardless of caste.
Conclusion: Until the 1800s the nobility were far less inbred than commoners.
This I also question, based on having studied many 18th century noble
genealogies. These families were, in fact, inbred to a very high
degree. You even find illegitimate descendants of a noble family
sometimes marrying well enough to introduce their genes back into the
family from which they came via the wrong side of the counterpane.
Grant
=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Grant Menzies
=-=-=-=-=-=-=
http://www.authorsden.com/grantmmenzies
-
Chris Dickinson
Re: European Inbreeding: Noble vs Peasant
Mike Talbot wrote:
<snip>
Depends on which commoners you are talking about. And which period. And
where.
So far as post-Reformation England is concerned:
If you are talking about minor squierarchy, then yes and no. They might
marry outside the area; but, if not, had a very small pool of suitable
talent from which to choose. On the other hand, younger sons were more
likely to go off to the wars and to the capital and to find new pastures in
which to stud.
If you are talking about top-of-the-range yeomanry, then yes. They made
marriages with an intense regard to their propertied interests - which
meant, on the whole, marrying into families that were geographically close
and similar. They also had enough local power and spare cash (raised
sometimes from selling outlying inheritances) to finds tenancies for younger
sons in the same area, often in the same manor.
If you are talking about non-propertied commoners, then no. They were much
more likely to move about (or be moved about).
And, of course, living in a town would mix you up much more than being in
the tranquility of the countryside
Chris
<snip>
Conclusion: Until the 1800s the nobility were far less inbred than
commoners.
snip
Depends on which commoners you are talking about. And which period. And
where.
So far as post-Reformation England is concerned:
If you are talking about minor squierarchy, then yes and no. They might
marry outside the area; but, if not, had a very small pool of suitable
talent from which to choose. On the other hand, younger sons were more
likely to go off to the wars and to the capital and to find new pastures in
which to stud.
If you are talking about top-of-the-range yeomanry, then yes. They made
marriages with an intense regard to their propertied interests - which
meant, on the whole, marrying into families that were geographically close
and similar. They also had enough local power and spare cash (raised
sometimes from selling outlying inheritances) to finds tenancies for younger
sons in the same area, often in the same manor.
If you are talking about non-propertied commoners, then no. They were much
more likely to move about (or be moved about).
And, of course, living in a town would mix you up much more than being in
the tranquility of the countryside
Chris
-
Nathaniel Taylor
Re: European Inbreeding: Noble vs Peasant
In article <20040905140737.25434.00000119@mb-m04.aol.com>,
mtaht@aol.com (MTaHT) wrote:
<...>
I agree that the initial commonplace is misleading from both genetic and
genealogical standpoints, but I would not come to the opposite
conclusion so quickly.
Given a pyramidally-stratified society, the lower classes are going to
be exponentially larger than the upper ones, yet the upper ones are
going to have the resources for a greater geographic scope for their
mate-seeking. It is not clear which advantage would outweigh the other,
and whether the advantage was always to one side or the other. And
examples have already been given where specific groups (merchants,
soldiers) might have been able to practice much wider exogamy than
classes above or below them.
The question of how much commoners or nobles knew of their own ancestry
is an old one, and is impossible to answer. I have done some poking
into this for England of the thirteenth century, in such records as the
papal dispensations for consanguineous marriages (where one finds a
relatively consistent percentage, over time and across classes, of
spouses seeking post-facto dispensations and alleging prior ignorance of
the impediment), and in villeinage suits before the curia regis, where
the genealogy of an alleged serf might be hotly contested by
contradictory witnesses. In this latter type of case, obviously some
witnesses were baldly lying, but in neither type of record is it clear
that higher-status persons automatically knew more of their and their
neighbors' genealogies than lower-class ones (obviously we, at
centuries' remove, know far more about nobles than the serfs, but that
is irrelevant).
Nat Taylor
a genealogist's sketchbook:
http://home.earthlink.net/~nathanieltaylor/leaves/
mtaht@aol.com (MTaHT) wrote:
One hears this mantra of the European Nobility being too inbred, too often.
<...>
Conclusion: Until the 1800s the nobility were far less inbred than commoners.
I agree that the initial commonplace is misleading from both genetic and
genealogical standpoints, but I would not come to the opposite
conclusion so quickly.
Given a pyramidally-stratified society, the lower classes are going to
be exponentially larger than the upper ones, yet the upper ones are
going to have the resources for a greater geographic scope for their
mate-seeking. It is not clear which advantage would outweigh the other,
and whether the advantage was always to one side or the other. And
examples have already been given where specific groups (merchants,
soldiers) might have been able to practice much wider exogamy than
classes above or below them.
The question of how much commoners or nobles knew of their own ancestry
is an old one, and is impossible to answer. I have done some poking
into this for England of the thirteenth century, in such records as the
papal dispensations for consanguineous marriages (where one finds a
relatively consistent percentage, over time and across classes, of
spouses seeking post-facto dispensations and alleging prior ignorance of
the impediment), and in villeinage suits before the curia regis, where
the genealogy of an alleged serf might be hotly contested by
contradictory witnesses. In this latter type of case, obviously some
witnesses were baldly lying, but in neither type of record is it clear
that higher-status persons automatically knew more of their and their
neighbors' genealogies than lower-class ones (obviously we, at
centuries' remove, know far more about nobles than the serfs, but that
is irrelevant).
Nat Taylor
a genealogist's sketchbook:
http://home.earthlink.net/~nathanieltaylor/leaves/
-
Bronwen Edwards
Re: European Inbreeding: Noble vs Peasant
A question that leaps into mind, regardless of the perspective taken
(the nobility as more or less inbred than the peasantry & whether or
not ancestors are known beyond great-grandparents, has to do with
biology and society:
First, history does not usually tell us (with notable exceptions)
which children are from one or another father. And, of course, the men
may not have known which children were their own. So, how do we treat
the social construct of legitimacy versus fooling around? Of course,
throughout history bastards have been legitimated, but how can we know
if the fathers themselves were actually the fathers? For that matter,
in a few cases (Nesta?), the women may not have been entirely sure! I
doubt that the nobility had a monopoly on sexual misbehavior but we
read about it today because of the stakes involved - titles,
inheritance, etc.
Second, leaving misbehavior out of it, does the fact of adoption
always make it onto paper and thus into history? Again, if the stakes
are high enough. For most people, there is no way to know. It is
commonplace in village life, in most cultures, for children to be
redistributed within an extended family or adopted by non-relatives if
necessary. This was not necessarily motivated by compassion but, like
marriage, was often an economic contract.
Third, even if peasants stay put, not every traveler is one of high
status. Soldiers, among others, might be on the move frequently, as
well as itinerant tradespeople. The reputation of the "traveling
salesman" is probably not new. A child could result from a brief
liaison, as well as from a rape or, for that matter, a marriage
(perhaps the least likely of the three). In some parts of the world,
even today, children might be sold to passers-by in times of need.
These things would all have, possibly, escaped notice, been
overlooked, or been unknown entirely except by the two people
involved.
Rather than pose an unanswerable question as to "anyone could have had
children by anyone else regardless of the written record", let me just
pose another question: what can genetic science tell us? I am
recalling how the purported "Anastasia Romanov" of the early 20th C.
was proved false by looking at the DNA of Prince Philip. Since they
are of different sexes, what kind of analysis would have been used?
Shall we go dig everyone up for samples? (just kidding). Best, Bronwen
Edwards, a peasant with noble ancestry
(the nobility as more or less inbred than the peasantry & whether or
not ancestors are known beyond great-grandparents, has to do with
biology and society:
First, history does not usually tell us (with notable exceptions)
which children are from one or another father. And, of course, the men
may not have known which children were their own. So, how do we treat
the social construct of legitimacy versus fooling around? Of course,
throughout history bastards have been legitimated, but how can we know
if the fathers themselves were actually the fathers? For that matter,
in a few cases (Nesta?), the women may not have been entirely sure! I
doubt that the nobility had a monopoly on sexual misbehavior but we
read about it today because of the stakes involved - titles,
inheritance, etc.
Second, leaving misbehavior out of it, does the fact of adoption
always make it onto paper and thus into history? Again, if the stakes
are high enough. For most people, there is no way to know. It is
commonplace in village life, in most cultures, for children to be
redistributed within an extended family or adopted by non-relatives if
necessary. This was not necessarily motivated by compassion but, like
marriage, was often an economic contract.
Third, even if peasants stay put, not every traveler is one of high
status. Soldiers, among others, might be on the move frequently, as
well as itinerant tradespeople. The reputation of the "traveling
salesman" is probably not new. A child could result from a brief
liaison, as well as from a rape or, for that matter, a marriage
(perhaps the least likely of the three). In some parts of the world,
even today, children might be sold to passers-by in times of need.
These things would all have, possibly, escaped notice, been
overlooked, or been unknown entirely except by the two people
involved.
Rather than pose an unanswerable question as to "anyone could have had
children by anyone else regardless of the written record", let me just
pose another question: what can genetic science tell us? I am
recalling how the purported "Anastasia Romanov" of the early 20th C.
was proved false by looking at the DNA of Prince Philip. Since they
are of different sexes, what kind of analysis would have been used?
Shall we go dig everyone up for samples? (just kidding). Best, Bronwen
Edwards, a peasant with noble ancestry
-
Andy.III
Re: European Inbreeding: Noble vs Peasant
Since they
are of different sexes, what kind of analysis would have been used?
MtDA is passed to all children by the mother and daughters can pass it on to
their offspring.. Since Philip and Nicky's wife were both descended thru female
lines from Victoria their Mtda would match and Anastasia's would match Philip's
as well since she was also a descendant in a female line.
Andy.III
--
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