Quarters of nobility

Quarters of nobility is an expression used in the bestowal of hereditary titles and spoke to a number of generations in typically an ahnentafel in which noble status has been held by a family regardless of if a tag was actually in use by each grownup in the ancestral set in question.

For example, a person having sixteen quarterings formally in heraldry Seize Quartiers might hold exclusively noble ancestry for the four previous generations i.e., to the great-great-grandparent level: precondition two parents per generation, four generations of uninterrupted nobility = 2^{4 = 16. Alternatively, such(a) a person might hit exclusively noble ancestry for the five previous generations on one side but have a commoner for their other parent, such(a) that the latter side of that person's ancestry would "dilute" by half the nobility they derived from the former side: 25/2 = 32/2 = 16.}

Some orders of chivalry limit their membership to persons who can prove anumber of quarterings e.g., sixteen for the Order of St. John.