Ennoblement was a typical phenomenon all over Europe while its forms, scope and results were very different. All variety of its forms may be reduced to three following ones: grant of nobility, purchase of nobility and usurpation of noble status. Among these forms the percentage of grants was cut while the number of purchases increased greatly.
Everywhere the state tried to control the procedure of ennoblement but rich and powerful commoners often managed to usurp noble status in some way or other. Its struggle against illegal ennoblement was not always effective. The state forced nobles to prove their status during prolonged and ruinous lawsuits. In such lawsuits the significance of written evidences grew notably, but common opinion also preserved its importance.
The trend to «closing» of noble estate is evident for many European countries in the seventeenth century (in comparison with the sixteenth century). Proofs of nobility became more complicated. State control over composition of estate and its struggle against usurpation became more systematic and rigid.
Unlike inter-estate boundary, the limits inside nobility were not so well defined juridically but in their social dimension they were quite definite and were realized by contemporaries. This boundary separated real elite of society from the mass of the lesser nobility that served as an intermediate (buffer) social strata. The practice of armorial bearing was a visual sign of this boundary and was often combined with genealogical control.
Rich commoners, being ennobled, were not usually satisfied with the level of lesser nobility. They crossed both boundaries and reinforced the elite of nobility. The ennoblement of commoners and the loss of noble status by poor nobles were two interrelated manifestations of social mobility that allayed disparity between wealth and noble status.
Despite common features that united all strata of nobility in every European country, the notion of unity of noble estate needs important reservations. Wealth, privileges, political influence, occupations and ways of life were very different for aristocracy and for lesser nobility. This difference must be taken into account when ideas of «crisis» and «decline» of nobility in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are examined. More close investigations always show the rise and flourishing of many nobles equally with decline of others.
In all European countries noble values continued to prevail in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Owing to ennoblement most rich and powerful commoners were included in the ranks of nobility and strengthened it. Decline and disappearance of ancient families were more than compensated by influx of new men. The ennobled families usually renounced their previous occupations that raised them. The so called «treason of bourgeoisie» was in fact the triumph of nobility that totally preserved its leading position in society.
