The Stoners and the Nobility

Big catholic families feel their exclusion from national public life very keenly in the local community. This is their chance to reassert their role as local lead patron and traditions of generous lordship in the service of community. The other group we mentioned were civic leaders. Unlike the nobility, they may not have that noble tradition of assumed legitimacy, status and leadership. They faced competition for their new leadership rolls from local aristocracy, ecclesiastical authority guilds. And so new town halls often went along with a lot of painting and imagery of a particular type.