Aristocracy

Aristocracy is a form of government or social structure in which political power is held by a small privileged ruling class, traditionally understood as the best citizens, originally in the sense of moral or martial excellence, and later, in practice, most commonly as an inherited hereditary nobility. The term derives from the Greek aristos, best, combined with kratos, rule, and Aristotle classified aristocracy among his basic forms of government as the rule of the few for the common good, distinguishing it from oligarchy, which he defined as the corrupted rule of the few for their own narrow benefit. In practice across European history aristocracy came to denote a hereditary class of nobles holding titles, land and inherited privilege, typically ranked below a reigning monarch but above commoners, exercising political, social and economic power, with membership secured through birth and marriage rather than the elected or examined merit the term originally implied. Aristocratic classes existed in varying forms across many premodern societies beyond Europe, including the shi warrior-scholar nobility of early imperial China and the daimyo domain lords of feudal Japan, generally combining hereditary landholding with formal legal privilege and a recognized claim to rule or to counsel those who did.