Sir John Fern and Formation of Antiquarian Narrative on Nobilitas

This paper examines Sir John Fern’s treatise «The Blazon of Gentrie deuided into two parts» in the context of the formation of the tradition of reasoning about nobilitas and about the «social» in general, the consolidation of which is usually associated with antiquarian historical writing. It is assumed that the range of subjects and issues related to nobility proposed by Fern served as a kind of matrix for subsequent treatises on the nobility, created with the involvement of technologies of antiquarian discourse. In Fern’s view, the nobilitas structure had a relatively homogeneous character, translating its internal unity, and went back to metaphysical and ethical origins, which defined it mainly as a static system. In the antiquarian discourse, with the formally preserved unity of the nobility, indicated in Fern’s text, the emphasis shifts towards the «hierarchy of titles», and the boundaries of the nobility acquire a more pronounced functional character. In the texts of the early Stuart theorists, the structure of nobilitas is complemented by a dynamic dimension, which is reflected in their consistent historicization of phenomena (titles and virtues) and thus contributes to the «birth of the social».

John Ferne, nobility, social group, heraldic treatises, antiquarian discourse, Tudors, Stuarts, England