British nobility
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 (a private meeting) with the monarch.
Peerage
The British nobility in the narrow sense consists of members of the immediate families of peers who bear
All modern British honours, including peerage dignities, are created directly by the Crown and take effect when letters patent are issued, affixed with the Great Seal of the Realm. The Sovereign is considered to be the fount of honour and, as "the fountain and source of all dignities cannot hold a dignity from himself",[2] cannot hold a British peerage.
Landed gentry
Descendants in the male line of peers and children of women who are peeresses in their own right, as well as baronets, knights, dames and certain other persons who bear no peerage titles, belong to the gentry, deemed members of the non-peerage nobility below whom they rank. The untitled nobility consists of all those who bear formally matriculated, or recorded, armorial bearings (a coat of arms).[1] CILANE[3] and the Sovereign Military Order of Malta[4] both consider armorial bearings as the main, if not sole, mark of nobility in Britain.
Other than their designation, such as Gentleman or Esquire, they enjoy only the privilege of a position in the formal orders of precedence in the United Kingdom. The largest portion of the British aristocracy has historically been the landed gentry, made up of baronets and the non-titled armigerous landowners whose families hailed from the medieval feudal class (referred to as gentlemen due to their income solely deriving from land ownership). Roughly a third of British land is owned by the nobility and landed gentry.[5]
Non-hereditary nobility
It is often wrongly assumed that knighthoods and life peerages cannot grant hereditary nobility. The bestowal of a peerage or a knighthood is seen as due reason for a grant of arms by Garter King of Arms or Lord Lyon, and thus, those who make use of it attain hereditary nobility. The eldest son of a Knight and his eldest sons in perpetuity attain the rank of Esquire.
The only form of non-hereditary nobility in Great Britain is that associated with certain offices, which give the rank of Gentleman for the duration of tenure, or for life. Some offices and ranks also give the rank of Esquire for life.
Ennoblement
The Monarch grants Peerages, Baronetcies and Knighthoods (nowadays mostly Life Peerages and Knighthoods) to citizens of the United Kingdom and Commonwealth Realms at the advice of the Prime Minister. Honours lists are published regularly at important occasions.
Untitled nobility, i.e. gentility, being identical to armigerousness, falls into the jurisdiction of the College of Arms and Lyon Court. Part of the Monarch's fons honorum—the power to grant arms—has been de facto devolved to Garter King of Arms and Lord Lyon King of Arms, respectively. A grant of arms is in every regard equivalent to a patent of nobility on the Continent; depending on jurisdiction and circumstances it can be seen as either an act of ennoblement or a confirmation of nobility.
Thus, along with Belgium and Spain, the United Kingdom remains one of the few countries in which nobility is still granted and the nobility (except for the hereditary peerage and baronetage) does not form a closed, purely "historical" class.
History
Early English period
Early
In the 10th century, the word gesith was replaced with the word
Above the gesith or thegn was the ealdorman. By the 9th century, this word meant any high-ranking royal official. With the development of the shire system, the meaning narrowed to a shire's chief secular officer. The ealdorman commanded the shire's fyrd (army) and co-presided with the bishop over the shire court. Typically, a single ealdorman was given charge of a group of shires (an ealdormanry), so there were around six or eight ealdormen at any one time. In the 11th century, while England was ruled by a Danish dynasty, the title changed from ealdorman to earl (related to Old English eorl and Old Norse jarl).[11] The earl was the most powerful secular magnate, second only to the king in authority. During Edward the Confessor's reign (1042–1066), there were four principal earldoms: Wessex, Mercia, Northumbria, and East Anglia.[12]
High-ranking members of the church hierarchy (archbishops, bishops and abbots) paralleled the secular aristocracy. The church's power derived from its spiritual authority as well as its virtual monopoly on education. Secular government depended on educated clergy to function, and prelates were important politicians and royal advisers. Bishops always took the leading role in the Witan, the councils of earls, thegns, and prelates that advised the king.[13]
Norman period (1066–1154)
The Norman Conquest of 1066 marked the creation of a new, French-speaking Anglo-Norman aristocracy with estates in both Normandy and England.[14] This cross-Channel aristocracy also included smaller groups originating from other parts of France, such as Brittany, Boulogne, and Flanders.[15]
When William I (r. 1066–1087) confiscated the property of the old Anglo-Saxon nobility, he kept 17 percent of the land as his royal demesne (now the Crown Estate). The rest was given to the Conqueror's companions and other followers. According to the Domesday Book of 1086, the rest of the land was distributed as follows:[16]
- 50 percent went to greater tenants-in-chief
- 25 percent went to the church
- 8 percent went to minor royal officials and lesser tenants-in-chief
Land was distributed according to the rules of
The greater tenants-in-chief constituted the highest ranks of the Anglo-Norman aristocracy: earls and the king's barons count (Latin: comes) used in Normandy.[10] This was the only hereditary title before 1337,[19] and it was the most exclusive rank within the aristocracy. Between 1000 and 1300, there were never more than 25 extant earldoms at any one time.[20]
. The Normans continued to use the title of earl and equated it with the title ofBelow earls were the king's barons. Baron (Latin: baro) originally meant "man". In Norman England, the term came to refer to the king's greater tenants-in-chief. King's barons corresponded to king's thegns in the Anglo-Saxon hierarchy.[21] Baron was not yet a hereditary title but rather described a social status.[22]
The estate of an earl or baron was called an honour. Domesday Book identifies around 170 greater tenants-in-chief, and the ten wealthiest among them owned 25 percent of the land:[16]
- Robert of Mortain, the earl of Cornwall
- Odo of Bayeux, the earl of Kent
- William FitzOsbern, the earl of Hereford
- Roger de Montgomery, the earl of Shrewsbury
- William de Warenne, the earl of Surrey
- Hugh d'Avranches, the earl of Chester
- Eustace II, the count of Boulogne
- Richard fitz Gilbert
- Geoffrey of Coutances
- Geoffrey de Mandeville
Domesday Book also records around 6,000 under-tenants. Earls and barons granted land to their own vassals in a process called subinfeudation. Their most important vassals were honorial barons, who were of lesser status than king's barons . They corresponded to the lesser thegn of Anglo-Saxon England. Honorial barons were given manors in return for service and had their own tenants. For this reason, they were intermediate or mesne lords.[23][24] These could also be wealthy and powerful, with some eclipsing the lesser important king's barons.[25]
The lower ranks of the aristocracy included the landless younger sons of important families and wealthier knights (men who held substantial land by knight-service). Poorer knights (whose knight's fees were small) were likely excluded from the aristocracy.[26]
13th century
By 1300, the knightly class or
The baronage (including barons, earls, and high-ranking churchmen) had a duty as tenants-in-chief to provide the king with advice when summoned to great councils.[30] In the 1200s, the great council evolved into Parliament, a representative body that increasingly asserted for itself the right to consent to taxation. Initially, participation in Parliament was still determined by one's status as a tenant-in-chief. Earls and greater barons received a writ of summons issued directly from the king, while lesser barons were summoned through the local sheriffs.[31] In the reign of Edward I (1272–1307), the first hereditary barons were created by writ. Over time, baronies by writ became the main method of creating baronies, and baronies by tenure became obsolete.[32]
20th century
Non-hereditary positions began to be created again in 1867 for
Until constitutional reforms soon after
A member of the House of Lords cannot simultaneously be a member of the
Noble titles
Dukes
- Dukes in the United Kingdom
- List of dukes in the peerages of Britain and Ireland
- List of dukedoms in the peerages of Britain and Ireland
Marquesses
- Marquesses in the United Kingdom
- List of marquesses in the peerages of Britain and Ireland
- List of marquessates in the peerages of Britain and Ireland
Earls
- Royal earldoms in the United Kingdom
- List of earls in the peerages of Britain and Ireland
- List of earldoms
Viscounts
- List of viscounts in the peerages of Britain and Ireland
- List of viscountcies in the peerages of Britain and Ireland
Barons/Lords of Parliament of Scotland
- Royal baronies in the United Kingdom
- List of barons in the peerages of Britain and Ireland
- List of baronies in the peerages of Britain and Ireland
- List of life peerages
Names adopted for titles of honour
The name adopted by the grantee of a title of nobility originally was the name of his seat or principal manor, which often had also been adopted as his surname, for example the Berkeley family seated at
Earls, being in reality the "Count" of Continental Europe, were also named after the County over which they exercised control. The range of names adopted for titles gradually expanded from territorial names alone. Later titles used a wide variety of names, including surname (unrelated to territorial designation indicated by the French particule de), for example in 1547
Modern life peers do not generally own large estates, from which to name their title, so more imagination is required, unless the simple option of using the surname is selected.
Gentry titles and styles
Baronets (styled as Sir)
Hereditary knights (styled as Sir)
Knights (styled as Sir)
- Knight, from Old English cniht ("boy" or "servant"),[35] a cognate of the German word Knecht ("labourer" or "servant").[36]
- British honours system
Dames
Non-peerage nobility
Clan chiefs/Lairds
Untitled members of the gentry
- Esquire (ultimately from Latin scutarius, in the sense of shield bearer, via Old French esquier) - comparable to the French-Belgian ecuyer, Dutch jonkheer and German Edler
- Gentleman - the lowest rank and lowest common denominator of British nobility
Irish and Gaelic nobility
Outside the United Kingdom, the remaining
Following the
Jewish nobility
Black British nobility
Gallery
-
Lady Margaret Beaufort
-
Philip, 20th Earl of Arundel
-
The Lord Bishop Jonathan Trelawny
-
Lord Robert Manners
-
Dudley, 24th Baron de Ros
See also
- Aristocracy
- British Royal Family
- Forms of address in the United Kingdom
- Gentry
- Honourable
- List of British monarchs
- Noblesse
- Orders, decorations, and medals of the United Kingdom
- Order of precedence in England and Wales
- Peerage, an exposition of great detail
- Peerage of England
- Peerage of Great Britain
- Peerage of Ireland
- Peerage of Scotland
- Peerage of the United Kingdom
- British Public Schools
- Welsh peers and baronets
Notes
Citations
- ^ ISBN 9781402185618. Retrieved 2016-12-06.
- Buckhurst Peerage Case
- ^ "Grande-Bretagne – CILANE". Retrieved 2022-08-18.
- ^ "The Conflict Between British and Continental Concepts of Nobility and the Order of Malta". The Conflict Between British and Continental Concepts of Nobility and the Order of Malta. 28 September 2021. Retrieved 2022-08-18.
- ^ Country Life (magazine), Who really owns Britain?, 16.10.2010
- ^ Jolliffe 1961, pp. 11–12.
- ^ a b Loyn 1955, p. 530.
- ^ Jolliffe 1961, pp. 14–15.
- ^ Carpenter 2003, p. 66 quoted in Huscroft 2016, pp. 28–29.
- ^ a b Green 1997, p. 11.
- ^ Powell & Wallis 1968, p. 6.
- ^ Huscroft 2016, p. 28.
- ^ Powell & Wallis 1968, p. 4.
- ^ Bartlett 2000, p. 13.
- ^ Green 1997, p. 40.
- ^ a b Given-Wilson 1996, p. 8.
- ^ Powell & Wallis 1968, pp. 39–40.
- ^ Green 1997, pp. 16.
- ^ Given-Wilson 1996, p. 29.
- ^ Crouch 1992, p. 44.
- ^ Green 1997, pp. 11–12.
- ^ Crouch 1992, p. 106.
- ^ Green 1997, pp. 12 & 16.
- ^ Powell & Wallis 1968, p. 40.
- ^ Bartlett 2000, pp. 202–203.
- ^ Green 1997, p. 12.
- ^ Given-Wilson 1996, p. 14.
- ^ Crouch 1992, p. 116.
- ^ Given-Wilson 1996, p. 12.
- ^ Maddicott 2010, p. 77.
- ^ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 421–422.
- ^ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 20 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 840.
- ^ Cokayne, G. E.; H. A. Doubleday & Lord Howard de Walden, eds. (1945). The Complete Peerage, or a history of the House of Lords and all its members from the earliest times (Oakham to Richmond). 10 (2nd ed.). London: The St. Catherine Press, p.80, note (a)
- ^ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Rivers, Earl". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 23 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 385.
- ^ "Knight". Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved 2009-04-07.
- ^ "Knecht". LEO German-English dictionary. Retrieved 2009-04-07.
- ^ Ruling of the Court of the Lord Lyon (26/2/1948, Vol. IV, page 26): "With regard to the words 'untitled nobility' employed in certain recent birthbrieves in relation to the (Minor) Baronage of Scotland, Finds and Declares that the (Minor) Barons of Scotland are, and have been both in this nobiliary Court and in the Court of Session recognised as a 'titled nobility' and that the estait of the Baronage (i.e. Barones Minores) are of the ancient Feudal Nobility of Scotland".
References
- ISBN 9780199251018.
- ISBN 0140148248.
- ISBN 978-0415755047.
- ISBN 0415148839.
- ISBN 0521524652.
- Huscroft, Richard (2016). Ruling England, 1042-1217 (2nd ed.). Routledge. ISBN 978-1138786554.
- Jolliffe, J. E. A. (1961). The Constitutional History of Medieval England from the English Settlement to 1485 (4th ed.). Adams and Charles Black.
- JSTOR 558038.
- ISBN 9780199585502.
- ISBN 0297761056.
Further reading
- Beckett, J. V. The Aristocracy in England 1660-1914 (1986)
- Cannadine, David. The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy (1990)
- Collins, Marcus. "The fall of the English gentleman: the national character in decline, c. 1918–1970." Historical Research 75.187 (2002): 90-111 online[dead link].
- Lipp, Charles, and Matthew P. Romaniello, eds. Contested spaces of nobility in early modern Europe (Ashgate, 2013).
- Manning, Brian. "The nobles, the people, and the constitution." Past & Present 9 (1956): 42-64 online during 17th century.
- Masters, Brian. The Dukes: The Origins, Ennoblement and History of Twenty-six Families (1975; revised ed. 2001)
- Stone, Lawrence. "The Anatomy of the Elizabethan Aristocracy." Economic History Review, 18#1/2, 1948, pp. 1–53. online
- Wasson, Ellis, Born to Rule: British Political Elites (2000)
- Wasson, Ellis, The British and Irish Ruling Class 1660-1945 (2017) 2 vols.
External links
- The Aristocracy, BBC Radio 4 discussion with David Cannadine, Rosemary Sweet & Felipe Fernandez-Armesto (In Our Time, Jun. 19, 2003)