Aristocracy

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ARISTOCRACY. That form of government in which the sovereign power is exercised by a small number of persons to the exclusion of the remainder of the people.

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It is Manning's purpose to highlight the internalization of "the martial ethos of the mainland European aristocracies" by the British aristocracies and to note, then, that by the early eighteenth century, the British Army served as an opportunity for aristocratic swordsmen.

Swordsmen: The Martial Ethos in the Three Kingdoms

Michele Renee Salzman focuses specifically on members of the Roman senatorial, imperial, bureaucratic, and ecclesiastical aristocracies in the West from 284 to 423 from an empire that practiced traditional Roman religions to one that outlawed them.

The Making of a Christian Aristocracy: Social and Religious Change in the Western Roman Empire

With the exception of the English aristocracy, aristocracies and colonial elites running patrimonial management economic systems have generally been viewed as a parasitic class contributing little to process of economic growth.

European Aristocracy and Colonial Elites: Patrimonial Management Strategies and Economic Development, 15th-18th Centuries

Even recent works about the different types of aristocracies have rejected traditional sketches emphasizing their social failure derived from their political inability to found longlasting regimes in France.

Contemporary French social history: crisis or hidden renewal?

It is in the nature of new aristocracies that they tend - at first, or until they've acquired the self-confidence to impose their own tastes and culture - to adopt the values of the class they've superseded.