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Did aristocrats in the middle ages ascribe their position in society to their individual actions or to their being born into aristocracy?

• jeffreyrogers 8y ago
  To being born into the aristocracy. And they viewed themselves as having obligations to the lower classes.
• cfadvan 8y ago
  They mostly ascribed it to being chosen by god and descended from various noble families, and kings.
• CommieBobDole 8y ago
  My understanding is that European royalty generally thought of their positions as being granted by divine providence. I guess it's slightly different because they didn't attain their position (they were born into it) but I think there's little question they generally considered themselves inherently morally superior to the poor. Really, it seems like the mechanism may have changed; "I am successful because God has chosen me in my inherent superiority to be successful" vs "I am successful because of the inherent superiority of the moral code I follow", but they're really just different applications of the just-world fallacy. Which, in turn, is a natural product of the way our brains are wired.
• mark212 8y ago
  note that the article isn't really talking about aristocrats, whatever their modern equivalent would be, but today's upper middle class. The kind of people who work for a living, highly paid for sure, but who aren't rentiers or factory owners. As far as successful burghers or artisans in the middle ages, then yes, I think they did ascribe their financial success as resulting from God's blessing their superior morality.