I just finally got into "Downton Abbey" in what turned out to be its final season. :rolleyes: I also saw a documentary about it, in which one of the people involved in making it said something about some of the the characters being aware that that way of life would not be around much longer. It's not clear to me exactly what that meant.
The show depicted the interactions of a super-duper-rich English family full of titles like "Lord" and "Lady" and "Marquis", and the apparently roughly same number or more of servants living in another section of the same enormous mansion with them in order to be able to serve them at any time throughout the day every day. My impression has always been that people don't live like that anymore, but this is the first time something has really made me wonder how the transition worked and how the offspring of such families do live now... or whether I was even right all along in thinking that this isn't how it's done anymore.
So... have the lower-nobility families become less wealthy than they were? If so, how did that happen? I've never heard of much wealth being taken from them, or people being kicked out of their mansions, and the concept of inheritable noble titles wasn't abolished, so where would the money have gone? If they're still that rich, do they just not live in those mansions and hire so many live-in servants anymore? If they do, then in what sense is the Downton Abbey culture gone at all? Did they keep their titles and money but cease to own & occupy the mansions, and if so, how are the buildings now used, and were they sold voluntarily or confiscated? Did they keep their homes but not maintain enough wealth to support such large staff and end up letting a bunch of the rooms just stand empty?
Also, why would it be called an "abbey"? Did some of these minor noble families acquire their houses from religious organizations that had originally used them as actual abbeys? And I noticed that when they gave people's full titles, it was often "the sixth Earl of Wherever" or "the seventh Duke of Wherever Else". What was the founding event of this system, when the first one of each was created?
The show depicted the interactions of a super-duper-rich English family full of titles like "Lord" and "Lady" and "Marquis", and the apparently roughly same number or more of servants living in another section of the same enormous mansion with them in order to be able to serve them at any time throughout the day every day. My impression has always been that people don't live like that anymore, but this is the first time something has really made me wonder how the transition worked and how the offspring of such families do live now... or whether I was even right all along in thinking that this isn't how it's done anymore.
So... have the lower-nobility families become less wealthy than they were? If so, how did that happen? I've never heard of much wealth being taken from them, or people being kicked out of their mansions, and the concept of inheritable noble titles wasn't abolished, so where would the money have gone? If they're still that rich, do they just not live in those mansions and hire so many live-in servants anymore? If they do, then in what sense is the Downton Abbey culture gone at all? Did they keep their titles and money but cease to own & occupy the mansions, and if so, how are the buildings now used, and were they sold voluntarily or confiscated? Did they keep their homes but not maintain enough wealth to support such large staff and end up letting a bunch of the rooms just stand empty?
Also, why would it be called an "abbey"? Did some of these minor noble families acquire their houses from religious organizations that had originally used them as actual abbeys? And I noticed that when they gave people's full titles, it was often "the sixth Earl of Wherever" or "the seventh Duke of Wherever Else". What was the founding event of this system, when the first one of each was created?
via International Skeptics Forum http://ift.tt/1XjXznB
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