Patrician (post-Roman Europe)

In post-Roman Europe, patricians constituted a hereditary class of elite families who monopolized political authority and economic dominance in autonomous urban centers, particularly in the Italian city-states and free imperial cities of the Holy Roman Empire, emerging as a distinct social order from the 11th century amid the decline of feudal structures and rise of commerce. Patricianship began in the ancient world, where cities such as Ancient Rome had a social class of patrician families, whose members were initially the only people allowed to exercise many political functions.

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