Part IV

A return to the interwar situation is also evident in Romania’s social composition. The return and reaffirmation of the old boyar families, as well as the significant number of guests with foreign noble titles crossing our borders, bring to the forefront a long-forgotten legal issue—nobility as a social status, as a symbol of tradition—with its emblems: the title, the coat of arms, and noble privileges. This article briefly outlines the evolution of the nobility and its current forms of existence, and attempts to provide an overview of the European nobility phenomenon. The noble title is analyzed from both legal and historical perspectives, with the article discussing, for the first time in Romanian literature, manorial titles and laird titles. The same analysis is applied to the coat of arms as a traditional personal emblem of honor, and the article concludes by examining noble privileges from a historical perspective.