Lithuanian nobility
Legally privileged class in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania
The Lithuanian nobility or szlachta of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was historically a legally privileged hereditary elite class in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth consisting of Lithuanians from Lithuania Proper; Samogitians from Duchy of Samogitia; following Lithuania's eastward expansion into what is now Belarus, Ukraine and Russia, many ethnically Ruthenian noble families (boyars); and, later on, predominantly Baltic German families from the Duchy of Livonia and Inflanty Voivodeship.