Aristocracy of officials

The "aristocracy of officials" (Danish and Norwegian: embedsaristokratiet or embetsaristokratiet) is a term used by historians to denote the elite of university-educated higher state officials (embedsmænd in Danish and embedsmenn or embetsmenn in modern Norwegian) in Denmark and Norway (both during their union and in the following century) from the early modern period until the 19th century. The term appears to have entered usage in the early 19th century.^[1] A higher official (embedsmand) in Denmark and Norway was by definition an official who had been appointed by the King. They included not only higher central government officials, but also all priests of the state church, all judges, lawyers (until the mid 19th century), county governors, university professors, and other groups. This class is also frequently referred to as the estate of the officials (embedsstanden or embedsmandsstanden with different spellings), although the officials did never formally constitute an estate of the realm in the legal sense (with the exception of the clergy, who until the 19th century de jure formed one of the two privileged estates, although the estates had de facto lost much of their importance with the introduction of absolute monarchy in 1660).

The "aristocracy of officials" was distinct from the nobility (adel). Some members of the class of officials were noble, while the vast majority were not. The introduction of absolute and hereditary monarchy in 1660 significantly weakened the political power of the nobility in favour of the King and the state administration and officials directly subordinate to the King. Since the 16th century, offices in Denmark and Norway were also increasingly awarded based on merits and education, leading to the disappearance of the lower nobility as local elites, especially in Norway, as they were very often unable to afford costly university educations abroad, and its gradual replacement as an elite by a class of university-educated higher officials, often of Danish or German origin.^[2] The kings from the 17th century and later periods tended to increasingly appoint non-nobles to state offices, to which nobles previously had had a monopoly, and nobility as an institution in the absolute monarchy was reduced to a mostly symbolic status. While the Danish nobility remained influential as a group, Norway's nobility was very small already by the 17th century, and nobility was abolished by the Parliament in 1821, at which point the nobility as a group was insignificant and comprised only a few families, virtually all of which were recently ennobled or foreign noble families.

In most rural localities and districts in Norway, the local and regional clergy (such as parish priests and provosts) and the district judge were typically the foremost members of their communities from the 16–17th centuries and onwards, and in some cases, their offices were in practice semi-hereditary. According to Hoffmann, "the priests were an important part of the aristocracy of officials. They were the representatives of the king in their districts."^[3] During the absolute monarchy, the priests were "an important instrument for royal power in the local communities. The priest was the representative of the state, both in the religious area and other areas of society."^[4]

Whereas most European nations at the time typically were dominated by a noble class, Norway during the 19th century is widely described as "the state of the officials" (Norwegian: embedsmannsstaten), reflecting the role of the officials as the dominant social and political class in the state at the national, regional and local level. The term "state of the officials" was introduced by the historian Jens Arup Seip, who also refers to this group as an "aristocracy of officials." According to Seip, "the thousand academic families" completely dominated the state and particularly the civil service, the government and the parliament during the 19th century.^[5] The historian Øystein Rian describes the aristocracy of officials in Norway as "a nobility-resembling elite;"^[6][7] in many respects they occupied a similar position in society as the French nobles of the Robe. According to Seip, this class had in common a university education, Danish language (with Norwegian pronunciation), often a Danish or German-sounding family name, and sympathies for and in many cases family or other ties to Denmark. With their families, they never comprised more than roughly one percent of the population.^[5]

References

1. See for example C. Molbech, "Nogle Yttringer om Aristokratie og Adelstand," Historisk Tidsskrift Vol. 3 p. 175, 1842
2. Lars Løberg, Norsk adel, hadde vi det?, Genealogen 2/1998, pp. 29–32.
3. Michael Hoffmann, Prestebilete og prestekvardag, Det teologiske Menighetsfakultet, 2012, p. 23
4. Hegstad, Harald, "Presten og de andre: Ekklesiologiske perspektiver," in Huse, Morten (ed.), Prest og ledelse, Oslo: Verbum, 2000, p. 31
5. Jens Arup Seip: Fra embedsmannsstat til ettpartistat og andre essays, Universitetsforlaget, 1963
6. Øystein Rian, "Embetsaristokratiet i Norge – en adelsliknende elite," lecture, Den dansk-norske embetsstanden, 14–15 January 2014, Lysebu
7. Øystein Rian, (2014). "Det norske embetsaristokratiet," in Morten Nordhagen Ottosen and Marthe Hommerstad (eds.), Ideal og realitet. 1814 i politisk praksis for folk og elite (pp. 111–125). Akademika forlag. ISBN 978-82-3210-334-8