Finnish nobility

Noble families and their descendants are still a part of Finnish republican society, but except for the titles themselves, no longer retain any specific or granted privileges.

The background was that the outmoded system of a leiðangr fleet and a king on constant travels in the realm (between the estates of Uppsala öd) was in need of replacement.

Generally, the nobility grew from wealthier or more powerful members of the peasantry, those who were capable of assigning work or wealth to provide the requisite cavalrymen.

Sporadically, at the very uppermost level of feudal society, the position of Duke of Finland was created, three times for a brother of a king and once for a more distant relative, Bengt Algotsson, from a family of high nobility.

Medieval Finnish frälse families included those of Särkilax, Tavast, Karp, Horn, Villnäs, Kurk of Laukko, Lepaa, Fincke, Dufva, Harviala, Sydänmaa, Karppalainen, Boije, Hästesko, Jägerhorn af Spurila, Pora (Spore), Gesterby and Sarvlax, as well as foreign-originated but establishedly Finlandic Danske, Fleming, Frille, Bidz and Diekn.

The previous basis of entrance to the frälse was mostly demolished by Gustav I of Sweden in 1536 when he, among his rearrangements of the military, made a new organization of the cavalry.

Practically continuing the old system of a large farm (manor) maintaining a cavalryman, he created a new name for these, rusthåll, and greatly enlarged their number.

This no longer carried a noble status with it, and the cavalryman was not required to permanently be in the king's garrisons, but was summoned to service only for wartime, being allowed to remain in the farm in peacetime, off-duty (after a century, this became obsolete as Sweden was continuously at war somewhere, or maintained all-too-big an empire, wherefore off-duty for cavalrymen became an unknown concept).

This organization did not change in essence when in 1682 Charles XI of Sweden introduced the new Swedish allotment system, where rusthålls continued as its cavalry element.

However, the situation of the 16th century favored soldiers, because the kingdom was in almost constant external warfare and kings trusted their military officers much more than other nobles, also when building administrative machineries.

Soldier nobility gained even some improvements to their position and wealth, whereas in general the noble class and its privileges were decreasing in importance during the harsh early Vasa kings.

It was part of the custom that only kings were entitled to dub knights and ennoble, while in addition several other authorities, including at least important castellans of big castle fiefs, were able to grant tax exemption (sv: 'frälse', fi: 'rälssi') to landholdings and useful local gentrymen.

At the time of Late Middle Ages, Latin was still the language of instruction from the secondary school upwards and in use among the educated class and priests.

In the two minor estates, burghers and peasants, Swedish also held sway, but in a more varying degree depending on regional differences.

In Eric's reign, those titles were intended to be inherited in an English and French manner, eldest heir succeeding.

Eric's successor, King John III of Sweden, however changed the rules into more German and Polish model, allowing all male-line members of a comital or a baronial family to have the same title, although the senior member was the "Head of the House" and held the actual county or the baronial estate (John's alteration however caused another development: if the male-line family became extinct, the title extinguished too - in France and England model, heiresses were often entitled to succeed to family's baronies and counties in case of brothers dying out).

This high number of lower nobility in Finland is explained to come from its military location, there having been a constant need of tapping the frälse system for troops and officers which led to a high number of ennoblements to Finland, whereas Sweden proper had lived more peacefully as to foreign wars and additionally had its nobility axed from time to time by civil war.

There was a special group of petty nobility, the so-called knapadel, derived from the last centuries of the Middle Ages, who generally were not able to produce a royal letter of ennoblement to support their status.

This was one of reasons why many Swedish family of high nobility got also one or more Finnish foremothers (a phenomenon very rare in medieval centuries when already geography was a sort of obstacle).

Due to the many wars, the crown needed a means to reward officers, and since cash was not plentiful, ennoblement and grants of land and other fiefs (rights to draw taxes) were used instead.

During the 17th century, the number of noble families grew by a factor of five, an immense new influx being generated by royal ennoblements of hitherto commoners.

In a few decades in midst of 17th century, the nobility's share of Swedish land rose from 16% to over 60%, which led to considerably lower tax incomes.

This was a period which produced a myriad of two-word Swedish-language finery names for nobility (very favored prefixes were Adler, "noble"; Ehren - "ära", "honor"; Silfver, "silver"; and Gyllen, "golden").

On the other hand, branches of other noble families (from all around the Swedish realm) settled in Finland, mostly due to an office gained by the newcomer nobleman.

They were generally just modestly propertied (or sometimes outright impoverished) families with traditions for serving in the military and/or administration at regular levels, and to create careers starting from junior positions.

With the Peace Treaty of Fredrikshamn in autumn 1809, the Swedish king obliged to cede all of Finland to Russia and he freed Finnish nobles and people from their oaths of fealty.

The Emperors of Russia found Finnish nobility a nicely co-operative group of useful people in general, and entrusted much of the administration to locals.

The main societal function of the nobility in those days was to provide military officers and civil servants for the grand ducal state.

Competition for administrative, judicial and military positions ("offices") was the prevalent life of the Finnish nobility, and for the most part also their main source of income.

[2] Some families, representing Finnish officers ennobled for their military merits by the Grand Duchy of Finland, were not introduced, and are thus missing from that list.