Peerages in the United Kingdom form a legal system comprising both hereditary and lifetime titles, composed of various ranks, and within the framework of the Constitution of the United Kingdom form a constituent part of the legislative process and the British honours system. The British monarch is considered the fount of honour and is notionally the only person who can grant peerages, though there are many conventions about how this power is used, especially at the request of the British government. The term peerage can be used both collectively to refer to the entire body of titled nobility, and individually to refer to a specific title. British peerage title holders are termed peers of the Realm.
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.
Lord of the manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England and Norman England, referred to the landholder of a rural estate. The titles date to the English feudal system. 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. The title is known as Breyr in Welsh.
The history of the British peerage, a system of nobility found in the United Kingdom, stretches over the last thousand years. The current form of the British peerage has been a process of development. While the ranks of baron and earl predate the British peerage itself, the ranks of duke and marquess were introduced to England in the 14th century. The rank of viscount came later, in the mid-15th century. Peers were summoned to Parliament, forming the House of Lords.
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".
Allodial title constitutes ownership of real property that is independent of any superior landlord. Allodial title is related to the concept of land held in allodium, or land ownership by occupancy and defence of the land.
Seisin denotes the legal possession of a feudal fiefdom or fee, that is to say an estate in land. It was used in the form of "the son and heir of X has obtained seisin of his inheritance", and thus is effectively a term concerned with conveyancing in the feudal era. The person holding such estate is said to be "seized of it", a phrase which commonly appears in inquisitions post mortem. The monarch alone "held" all the land of England by his allodial right and all his subjects were merely his tenants under various contracts of feudal tenure.
In Scotland, a baron or baroness is a rank of the ancient nobility of the Baronage of Scotland, a title of honour, and refers to the holder of a barony, formerly a feudal superiority or prescriptive barony attached to land erected into a free barony by Crown Charter, this being the status of a minor baron, recognised by the crown as noble, but not a peer.
An overlord in the English feudal system was a lord of a manor who had subinfeudated a particular manor, estate or fee, to a tenant. The tenant thenceforth owed to the overlord one of a variety of services, usually military service or serjeanty, depending on which form of tenure the estate was held under. The highest overlord of all, or lord paramount, was the monarch, who due to his ancestor William the Conqueror's personal conquest of the Kingdom of England, owned by inheritance from him all the land in England under allodial title and had no superior overlord, "holding from God and his sword", although certain monarchs, notably King John (1199–1216) purported to grant the Kingdom of England to Pope Innocent III, who would thus have become overlord to English monarchs.
A feudal baron is a vassal holding a heritable fief called a barony, comprising a specific portion of land, granted by an overlord in return for allegiance and service. Following the end of European feudalism, feudal baronies have largely been superseded by baronies held as a rank of nobility, without any attachment to a fief. However, in Scotland, the feudal dignity of baron remains in existence, and may be bought and sold independently of the land to which it was formerly attached.
Lord of Pittenweem or Baron of Pittenweem is a title of nobility in the Baronage of Scotland.
A barony is an administrative division of a county in Scotland, Ireland, outlying parts of England and historically France and Sardinia. As a barony is associated to a Baron and a county to a Count or Earl, it has a lower rank and importance than a county.
A Lord in the Baronage of Scotland is an ancient title of nobility, held in baroneum, which Latin term means that its holder, who is a lord, is also always a baron. 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.
In England, the baronage was the collectively inclusive term denoting all members of the feudal nobility, as observed by the constitutional authority Edward Coke. It was replaced eventually by the term peerage.
The Barony of Polop and Benidorm is an ancient Spanish hereditary lordship in the Kingdom of Valencia under the Crown of Aragon. The barony, including the castles of Polop and Benidorm and extensive land, is located in the province of Alicante, Valencia, Spain, only a few miles from the Mediterranean Sea.
Scots property law governs the rules relating to property found in the legal jurisdiction of Scotland. As a hybrid legal system with both common law and civil law heritage, Scots property law is similar, but not identical, to property law in South Africa and the American state of Louisiana.
An Earl/Marquis/Duke in the Baronage of Scotland is an ancient title of nobility that is held en baroneum, which means that its holder, who is a feudal earl/marquis/duke, is also always a feudal baron. 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.
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 Magnum Concilium, the precursor of parliament.
In Ireland, a feudal barony is a customary title of minor nobility, similar to a title in the Baronage of Scotland. The person who holds an Irish feudal barony is always referred to as a baron. However, unlike peers in the British House of Lords, they did not necessarily hold a hereditary peerage title. As a result, feudal barons were not automatically entitled to seats in the Irish House of Lords by virtue of their barony alone. This distinction was noted by the Dublin Government in 1614, which observed that while many "gentlemen" in Ireland were called Baron, "Never was any of them Lord Baron nor summoned to any Parliament". In other words, the title of feudal baron did not in itself confer membership or voting rights in the Irish House of Lords.
Baron of Renfrew is a dignity in the Baronage of Scotland held by the heir apparent to the British throne, currently Prince William, Duke of Rothesay. It has been held by the Scottish heir apparent since 1404. It is closely associated with the title Duke of Rothesay. An act of the Scottish Parliament passed in 1469 confirmed the pattern of succession. Renfrew, a town near Glasgow, is sometimes called the "cradle of the royal Stewarts".
