Uradel

Since the earliest known such letters were issued in the 14th century, those knightly families in northern European nobility whose noble rank predates these are designated Uradel.

[3] Uradel and Briefadel families are generally further divided into categories with their ranks of titles: adlig (untitled nobility), freiherrlich (baronial), gräflich (comital), fürstlich (princely) and herzoglich (ducal) houses.

According to the German genealogical reference work of the nobility (Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels, 1951) the noble houses which count as Uradel are those families whose ancestral lineage can be demonstrated to date at least as far back as the year 1400 (in the Late Middle Ages), belonging at that time to the knightly (German ritterbürtigen) nobility.

The latter includes edelfreie families (free noblemen) as well as ministeriales, a lower and in their origins mostly unfree order which arose rapidly and managed within the 14th century to elevate themselves to the lesser nobility (see: Estates of the realm).

In fact, most of the families in the former Uradel volumes of the Gotha are of ministerialis origin, including even some of the later princely houses ("Hochadel", see below).

[6] In contrast, the ministeriales, meaning originally "servitors" or "agents", were unfree nobles, however trained knights who made up a large majority of what could be described as the German knighthood during that time.

Poorer Edelfrei knights passed into ministerialis service, primarily to be granted new administrative positions and fiefs.

Since it is a coincidence from what period of time documents have been received or not, the initially more strict definition, as described in Der Große Brockhaus in 1928 (vol.

Said to have been modelled on the earlier French practice of raising officials (especially lawyers) to the aristocracy, the earliest letters patent conferring nobility in Germany were issued under Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor, in the late 14th century.

[9] The letters patent referred to here is that issued by Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV to Wicker Frosch, a burgher of Frankfurt, on 30 September 1360.