Swedish nobility

Common card · No. 380875

The Swedish nobility (Swedish: Adeln, or Ridderskapet och Adeln, lit. "The Knights and the Nobility") has historically been a legally or socially privileged class in Sweden, and part of the so-called frälse (a derivation from Old Swedish meaning free neck). The archaic term for nobility, frälse, also included the clergy, a classification defined by tax exemptions and representation in the diet (the Riksdag). Today the nobility does not maintain its former legal privileges although family names, titles and coats of arms are still protected. The Swedish nobility consists of both "introduced" and "unintroduced" nobility, where the latter has not been formally "introduced" at the House of Nobility (Riddarhuset). The House of Nobility still maintains a fee for male members over the age of 18 for upkeep on pertinent buildings in Stockholm. Belonging to the nobility in present-day Sweden may still carry some informal social privileges, and be of certain social and historical significance particularly...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Michael Caven from Stockholm, Sweden, CC BY 2.0