In the commentary from Mr Valle defending his business he has asserted that the practice of gaining nobility through adoption is well-established. No doubt he makes such claims to reassure his clients, should they doubt his assertion thaqt through the service he offers they gain an honoured name and rank.
His claim is without merit, however. Yes of course adoptions were effected in past times, and yes sometimes the adoptees inherited the titles of their adoptive parents and entered the nobility. But this did not happen through the adoption process, but by royal grace, in the form of a decree, patent or diploma. In Italy the best known case is perhaps that of the Giovanellis, where the widow of the last Prince (herself born a Chigi) adopted her late husband's illegitimate sons. But this was not what made them Princes Giovanelli! It was the decision of king Umberto I to create them Prince Giovanelli that ennobled them. Other examples were the adoptions that led to the inheritance of the Aldobrandini, Salviati and (one branch of) the Torlonia names and titles by members of the Princely Borghese family. In each case, however, these successions required royal decrees to effectively pass the titles and names (the Borghese were of course already nobles).
In a recent exchange on this group I was attached for criticising the claim that an Ecclesiastical Tribunal was capable of legitimating the passage of a noble title to an adopted child (and in that case the title had been created by King Umberto II in exile and there was no sound legal basis for the ecclesiastical tribunal to exercise any jurisdiction over this title). I was subject to the typical ad hominem attacks that sometimes invade this group and was old I was surely a bad Catholic! I subsequently inquired of the Secretariat of State of the Holy See and was assured that jurisdiction over noble titles is reserved to the secretariat of state, and that the Papal Brief of Pius IX of 1876 concerning the Papal nobility still applied (and this required natural and legitimate descent). I was also told that the Secretariat of State had never asserted authority on behalf of the Holy See over any foreign titles.
Mr Valle claimed that adoption could legally pass titles in France, which I disputed and he now appears to no longer assert. Italian nobiliary law expressly requires natural and legitimate descent, so that rules out Italy. The succession to Spanish titles depends on a series of laws which are applied by the ministry of Justice; an adoption of an heir would only be successful with royal grace. It has been claimed that in 19th century Germany, adoptive heirs somehow entered the nobility - I challenge Mr Valle to name one example where nobility passed to an adoptive heir without royal confirmation and grant. The feudal system no longer exists and outside Scotland (until very recently) it is impossible to acquire a noble fief in any European state to the offer of the lordship and barony of Roccamora di Edessa is phoney.
Mr Valle does not like his business practices to be criticised. Perhaps if he simply explained that he offers to find a member of a noble family who is prepared to adopt a willing buyer so this person can assume that family name, but then mnore honestly explained that this would not make the adoptee a noble, he could escape the censure he richly deserves for his deceptive web site.
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Guy Stair Sainty
www.chivalricorders.org/index3.htm
http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com
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