News archives 12/07/2022 18 Pinterest 23

Since 1500, the nobility has lost many of its former sources of income. The influx of huge masses of gold and silver from America led to the fact that money in Europe began to rapidly become cheaper; the cash quitrents that the nobles received from the peasants did not cover the needs of the aristocrats accustomed to luxury. The increased royal power prevented wars between individual feudal clans - and in fact, in the old days, these skirmishes made it possible for many to live by plundering the possessions of opponents. Finally, royal power takes away from the feudal lords the right to collect tolls on roads and rivers; now this is done by royal officials in favor of the monarch.

The poverty and unpretentiousness of rural life, and often complete impoverishment, force the nobles to go to big cities (and most often to the capital) in search of a profitable place in the royal service. Let us remember d'Artagnan, who entered Paris as a beggar and made a military career; let us recall the main character of the book by the French writer Theophile Gauthier “Captain Fracasse”, who left his ruined estate and fell into the company of wandering actors ... Many, like the famous Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes (see article “Conquistadors”), left their homeland and sought happiness in distant overseas lands. Cortes was lucky, he became fabulously rich, but not everyone was lucky. Most of the nobles were forced to choose between a half-starved existence in the family homestead and an early death from a cannonball, an insidious blow with a sword or a poisoned Indian arrow far from their home.

Getting into the royal service was not at all easy. Cities like Paris were crowded with poor nobles from the provinces, who flocked there in the hope of handouts from the king or a place in his guard. But no matter how rich the French crown was, it still did not have enough funds to support the entire nobility of France.

Recalcitrant, wayward nobles were ill-suited to fulfill the positions of royal judges, dei and tax collectors. In all European countries, the kings preferred to recruit senior officials from the humble, but educated and obedient wealthy citizens. True, these judges and ministers sought to buy titles of nobility for themselves and to get closer to real nobles, “nobles of the sword” (they themselves were called “nobles of the mantle”, according to the long capes worn by judicial officials), but the real fusion of the old and new nobility Did not happen.

Alexandre Dumas, the author of the famous Three Musketeers, knew French history of the 16th-17th centuries well. Before us is the life of heroes full of difficulties. Here is Porthos, who became rich only after marrying a prosecutor - a woman of wealthy but ignoble origin; Aramis is as poor as his comrade and buys equipment with his girlfriend's money.

Athos has royal blood in his veins; he is graceful, noble, smart - this is the same ideal nobleman that we talked about earlier. But for all his outstanding qualities, Athos is not rich and is forced to lead the life of a hired soldier. Several times he speaks with irony about the insignificant price of human life - after all, a nobleman who is in the service does not belong to himself, but is completely dependent on the monarch's will.

Recall that at the first opportunity, three friends leave the service in the regiment of musketeers; it is continued only by d'Artagnan, the poorest and most ambitious of all. Athos, on the other hand, despises the hustle and bustle of court life and hates Cardinal Richelieu (see article “Richelieu”), who limited the freedom of the nobility, forbade duels and in many respects equated nobles to other classes.

The Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece, a refined aristocrat, whose company in the tavern is made up of rude soldiers - this, of course, is not a completely true portrait of a nobleman of the 17th century. He is quite different from the “ideal courtier” depicted in the famous work “The Courtier” by the Italian Baldassare Castiglione. Where is the truth? Who is he, a nobleman of the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the New Age, a true creator of European culture, a fearless discoverer of the new, a highly educated person, a patron of sciences or a completely discharged nonentity, a consumer giving way to a new advanced class - the bourgeoisie?

The easiest way is to say that both pictures are true, but neither is completely accurate. Let's try to illuminate the figure of a nobleman in a slightly different way, more impartially.

There is no doubt that it was the culture of the nobility that tried to realize the ideal of a comprehensively developed person, who is a full-fledged member of society and at the same time lives a rich inner spiritual life (until then, the Middle Ages contrasted these aspects of life in the images of a knight and a monk). At the same time, the nobles believed that only those people who were endowed with “innate nobility” and the right to independently determine their own destiny could achieve such harmony. But it soon turned out that the personal perfection of a person does not depend on the nobility of his origin (by the way, Italian humanists spoke about this in the 15th century).

It turns out that the nobles “gave” the ideal of a comprehensively developed person to the new Europe. For themselves, they “left” a feeling of deep disappointment with life, dissatisfaction and longing. From the outside, it might seem that disbelief in God, a general critical attitude, and even cynicism that spread among the nobles interfered with forward movement. These features of the structure of the mind and soul greatly irritated the representatives of the bourgeoisie who fanatically believed in God and progress. But over time, it turned out that these features of the noble consciousness were useful to the new Europe. They came in handy when the first enthusiasm for the revolutionary changes of the New Age had passed, when the Europeans again thought about their historical fate...

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All Andorra - All Pyrenees

Wednesday, July 13, 2022

News archives 12/07/2022 18 Pinterest 23

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