patrician

In post-Roman Europe, patricians constituted a hereditary class of elite families who monopolized political authority and economic dominance in autonomous urban centers, particularly in the Italian city-states and free imperial cities of the Holy Roman Empire, emerging as a distinct social order from the 11th century amid the decline of feudal structures and rise of commerce. Patricianship began in the ancient world, where cities such as Ancient Rome had a social class of patrician families, whose members were initially the only people allowed to exercise many political functions. In the rise of European towns in the 12th and 13th centuries, the patriciate, a limited group of families with a special constitutional position, in Henri Pirenne's view, was the motive force. In 19th century Cen...