ABSTRACT
New arrivals to the rank of imperial nobility were those men of comparatively humble origins, who had been granted Reich land in reward for service in the Thirty Years War – Wallenstein and his helpmate Aldringen from Luxemburg are cases in point. In all German states the nobility formed the first estate in the land, and as such enjoyed certain rights and privileges. The German nobility began to attend university in increasing numbers from the late sixteenth century onwards. The high nobility, or those who could afford it, favoured the Grand Tour for their sons, and this usually included a period spent at foreign universities. The Austrian nobility was probably the most socially diverse in Germany. The history of the nobility in Prussia is the best documented of any in Germany. Business offered an outlet for new nobility in Saxony in a way that was not typical of Germany as a whole until the second half of the nineteenth century.
