Manorial Society of Great Britain

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The Manorial Society of Great Britain Limited is a private limited company (by Guarantee) and incorporated on 30 December 1996. It has a membership of approximately 1,900, comprising Lords of the Manor, feudal barons, peers, and historians mainly from the United Kingdom but also some from the Republic of Ireland.

Contents

Its aims are:

Governance

The Governing Council of the Manorial Society of Great Britain in 2018 includes the following members of the British peerage and knightage amongst whom one usually hosts an annual reception at the House of Lords. [1]

Original foundation

The original Manorial Society was established as a pressure group in 1906 but did not long survive. Another organization claiming to be a revival was registered in 1995 as "The Manorial Society Limited" under Company registration No. 03111590. Both organizations are no longer connected to the original society.

Source of information

Her Majesty's Land Registry refers to the Manorial Society of Great Britain as a source of information in assisting research on manors as officially indicated on HMLR Practice Guide 22. [2]

Publications

In 1996 the Society co-published a guide to Manorial Law. [3]

In 2012 the Society published a Manorial Directory, listing a number of surviving manorial lordships and feudal baronies in Great Britain and Ireland, with their histories and biographical information on their current holders. [4]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Manorialism</span> Economic, political and judicial institution during the Middle Ages in Europe

Manorialism, also known as seigneurialism, the manor system or manorial system, was the method of land ownership in parts of Europe, notably France and later England, during the Middle Ages. Its defining features included a large, sometimes fortified manor house in which the lord of the manor and his dependants lived and administered a rural estate, and a population of labourers who worked the surrounding land to support themselves and the lord. These labourers fulfilled their obligations with labour time or in-kind produce at first, and later by cash payment as commercial activity increased. Manorialism was part of the feudal system.

The peerages in the United Kingdom are a legal system comprising both hereditary and lifetime titles, composed of various noble ranks, and forming a constituent part of the British honours system. The term peerage can be used both collectively to refer to the entire body of nobles, and individually to refer to a specific title. British peerage title holders are termed peers of the Realm. The peerage's fundamental roles are ones of government, peers being eligible to a seat in the House of Lords, and of meritocracy, the receiving of any peerage being the highest of British honours. In the UK, five peerages or peerage divisions co-exist, namely:

Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The appellation can also denote certain persons who hold a title of the peerage in the United Kingdom, or are entitled to courtesy titles. The collective "Lords" can refer to a group or body of peers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Baron</span> Title of nobility in Europe

Baron is a rank of nobility or title of honour, often hereditary, in various European countries, either current or historical. The female equivalent is baroness. Typically, the title denotes an aristocrat who ranks higher than a lord or knight, but lower than a viscount or count. Often, barons hold their fief – their lands and income – directly from the monarch. Barons are less often the vassals of other nobles. In many kingdoms, they were entitled to wear a smaller form of a crown called a coronet.

A courtesy title is a form of address in systems of nobility used for children, former wives and other close relatives of a peer, as well as certain officials such as some judges and members of the Scottish gentry. These styles are used "by courtesy" in the sense that persons referred to by these titles do not themselves hold substantive titles. There are several different kinds of courtesy titles in the British peerage system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Right Honourable</span> Honorific prefix

The Right Honourable is an honorific style traditionally applied to certain persons and collective bodies in the United Kingdom, the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations. The term is predominantly used today as a style associated with the holding of certain senior public offices in the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, and, to a lesser extent, Australia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lord of Parliament</span> Lowest rank of Scottish nobility

A Lord of Parliament was the holder of the lowest form of peerage, entitled as of right to take part in sessions of the pre-Union Parliament of Scotland. Since that Union in 1707, it has been the lowest rank of the Peerage of Scotland, ranking below a viscount. A Lord of Parliament is said to hold a Lordship of Parliament.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lord of the manor</span> Landholder of a rural estate

Lord of the manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England and Norman England, referred to the landholder of a rural estate. The lord enjoyed manorial rights as well as seignory, the right to grant or draw benefit from the estate. The title continues in modern England and Wales as a legally recognised form of property that can be held independently of its historical rights. It may belong entirely to one person or be a moiety shared with other people.

False titles of nobility or royal title scams are claimed titles of social rank that have been fabricated or assumed by an individual or family without recognition by the authorities of a country in which titles of nobility exist or once existed. They have received an increasing amount of press attention, as more schemes that purport to confer or sell such honorifics are promoted on the internet. Concern about the use of titles which lack legal standing or a basis in tradition has prompted increased vigilance and denunciation, although under English common law a person may choose to be known by any name they see fit as long as it is not done to "commit fraud or evade an obligation".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Merlin Hanbury-Tracy, 7th Baron Sudeley</span> British peer (1939–2022)

Merlin Charles Sainthill Hanbury-Tracy, 7th Baron Sudeley, was a British hereditary peer, author, and monarchist. In 1941, at the age of two, he succeeded his first cousin once removed, Richard Hanbury-Tracy, 6th Baron Sudeley, to the Barony of Sudeley and until the reforms of House of Lords Act 1999, he regularly sat as a hereditary peer.

Advowson or patronage is the right in English law of a patron (avowee) to present to the diocesan bishop a nominee for appointment to a vacant ecclesiastical benefice or church living, a process known as presentation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barons in Scotland</span> Scottish feudal barons, and a list of baronies

In Scotland, a baron or baroness is the head of a feudal barony, also known as a prescriptive barony. This used to be attached to a particular piece of land on which was situated the caput or essence of the barony, normally a building, such as a castle or manor house. Accordingly, the owner of the piece of land containing the caput was called a baron or baroness. According to Grant, there were around 350 identifiable local baronies in Scotland by the early fifteenth century and these could mostly be mapped against local parish boundaries. The term baron was in general use from the thirteenth century to describe what would have been known in England as a knight of the shire.

The Lord High Steward of Ireland is a hereditary Great Officer of State in the United Kingdom, sometimes known as the Hereditary Great Seneschal. The Earls of Shrewsbury have held the office since the 15th century. Although the Irish Free State, later the Republic of Ireland, became independent in 1922, the title remained the same, rather than reflecting the region of Northern Ireland, which remains within the United Kingdom.

The British nobility is made up of the peerage and the (landed) gentry. The nobility of its four constituent home nations has played a major role in shaping the history of the country, although the hereditary peerage now retain only the rights to stand for election to the House of Lords, dining rights there, position in the formal order of precedence, the right to certain titles, and the right to an audience with the monarch. More than a third of British land is in the hands of aristocrats and traditional landed gentry.

Vice Great Seneschal of Ireland, is not a formal title of office, but describes a functional role under the aegis of the Hereditary Great Seneschal or Lord High Steward of Ireland, the latter acting under royal authority dating back several centuries. The function was assigned to the Hereditary Seneschal or Lord Steward for Tyrconnell, Patrick Denis O'Donnell (1922–2005). and subsequently inherited by his son, Francis Martin O'Donnell.

A feudal lordship is a feudal title that is held in baroneum, which Latin term means that its holder, who is called a feudal lord, is also always a feudal baron. A feudal lordship is an ancient title of nobility. The holder may or may not be a Lord of Regality, which meant that the holder was appointed by the Crown and had the power of "pit and gallows", meaning the power to authorise the death sentence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Heerlijkheid</span> Lowest administrative and judicial unit in Low Countries before 1800

A heerlijkheid was a landed estate that served as the lowest administrative and judicial unit in rural areas in the Dutch-speaking Low Countries before 1800. It originated as a unit of lordship under the feudal system during the Middle Ages. The English equivalents are manor, seigniory and lordship. The German equivalent is Herrschaft. The heerlijkheid system was the Dutch version of manorialism that prevailed in the Low Countries and was the precursor to the modern municipality system in the Netherlands and Flemish Belgium.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">English feudal barony</span> Medieval English noble title and type of land tenure

In the kingdom of England, a feudal barony or barony by tenure was the highest degree of feudal land tenure, namely per baroniam, under which the land-holder owed the service of being one of the king's barons. The duties owed by and the privileges granted to feudal barons are not exactly defined, but they involved the duty of providing soldiers to the royal feudal army on demand by the king, and the privilege of attendance at the king's feudal court, the precursor of parliament.

An Irish feudal barony was a customary title of nobility: the holder was always referred to as a Baron, but was not the holder of a peerage, and had no right to sit in the Irish House of Lords. In 1614 the Dublin Government noted that there were "diverse gentlemen" in Ireland who were called Baron, yet: "Never was any of them Lord Baron nor summoned to any Parliament".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Feudalism in England</span>

Feudalism as practiced in the Kingdoms of England during the medieval period was a state of human society that organized political and military leadership and force around a stratified formal structure based on land tenure. As a military defence and socio-economic paradigm designed to direct the wealth of the land to the king while it levied military troops to his causes, feudal society was ordered around relationships derived from the holding of land. Such landholdings are termed fiefdoms, traders, fiefs, or fees.

References

  1. Governing Council
  2. "Practice guide 22: manors". GOV.UK. Retrieved 14 July 2018.
  3. Barsby, A.W. & C., Manorial Law (Legal Research and Publishing in association with the Manorial Society of Great Britain, 1996)
  4. Manorial Society of Great Britain, (Introduction: Charles Mosley (genealogist)). A Directory of Some Lords of the Manor and Barons in the British Isles, published by Smith’s Peerage Limited, Dorset and London, 2012 ISBN   978 0 9572133 0 2