Japheth traces the origins of most of the nations of Europe back to Japheth. Scholars in almost every European nation continued to repeat and develop Saint Isidore's assertion of descent from Noah through Japheth into the nineteenth century. Ivane Javakhishvili associated Japheth's sons with certain ancient tribes, called Tubals (Tabals, Greek: "Tibarenoi") and Meshechs (Meshekhs/Mosokhs, Greek: "Moschoi"), who they claim represent non-Indo-European and non-Semitic, possibly "Proto-Iberian" tribes of Asia Minor of the 3rd-1st millennia BC. In the Polish tradition of Sarmatism, the Sarmatians were said to be descended from Japheth, son of Noah, enabling the Polish nobility to imagine themselves able
Ennoblement personal virtue: Shem, Ham and Japheth sprang from the same father, yet Ham was ignoble and King David rose from shepherd to become king through sheer faith and soldierly courage. Bartolus defined natural nobility by reference to Aristotle, who in his "Politics" explains how some are marked out for freedom by their virtues (and specifically by their capacity to rule), and are so distinguished from the mass of men whose talents fit them only for a servile role. Those free men whose virtues thus fit them to rule Bartolus defines as the natural nobility. With regard to natural nobility, Bartolus