The Doctrine of State and the Principles of State Law, Friedrich Julius Stahl, pp. 65, WordBridge Publishing, 2009, ISBN 978-90-76660-09-7, ... Nobility is defined as a class which is politically privileged on the basis of its own, inherited right. It owes its origin to the need for rulership positions, and to the original status of birthright as entitling one to such a position ...
Emile Durkheims Contribution To L'Anne Sociologique, Emile Durkheim, pp. 323, Simon and Schuster, 1998, ISBN 978-0-684-86390-0, ... Nobility is defined by the author as 'a social class, for which the law acknowledges privileges handed down through inheritance due to the single factor of birth.' Three elements serve, then, to characterize it: (1) legally recognized (2) privileges connected with (3) birth alone ...
The Oxford Handbook of the Ancien Régime, William Doyle, pp. 167, Oxford University Press, 2011, ISBN 978-0-19-929120-5, ... 'nobility is defined as a quality that the sovereign power imprints upon private persons, so as to raise them and their descendants above the other citizens' ...
