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1 results

  • 7 - Living “Noblement”

  • from Part II - The Merchants’ Selbstzeugnisse
  • Martha C. Howell, Columbia University
  • Book:
    Making Merchants
    Published online:
    19 September 2025
    Print publication:
    09 October 2025, pp 87-108

  • Summary

    This chapter presents evidence that some of the merchants under study either were actually ennobled or otherwise lived “nobly,” easily socializing with the lower nobility in German-speaking Europe and sometimes with the high nobility. Despite many historians’ claims otherwise, such merchants did not leave trade; nor did they marry “out of” the mercantile class, even if some of their wives bore names indicating noble status. The chapter also presents evidence assembled by other scholars that demonstrates the same patterns: merchants often lived as “city nobles” (Stadtadel) even while continuing their work in commerce.