Baron

Typically, the title denotes an aristocrat who ranks higher than a lord or knight, but lower than a viscount or count.

He glosses it as meaning servos militum and explains it as meaning "stupid", by reference to classical Latin bārō "simpleton, dunce";[2] because of this early reference, the word has also been suggested to derive from an otherwise unknown Celtic *bar, but the Oxford English Dictionary takes this to be "a figment".

In the Kingdom of England, the medieval Latin word barō (genitive singular barōnis) was used originally to denote a tenant-in-chief of the early Norman kings who held his lands by the feudal tenure of "barony" (in Latin per barōniam), and who was entitled to attend the Great Council (Magnum Concilium) which by the 13th century had developed into the Parliament of England.

[4] Feudal baronies (or "baronies by tenure") are now obsolete in England and without any legal force, but any such historical titles are held in gross, that is to say are deemed to be enveloped within a more modern extant peerage title also held by the holder, sometimes along with vestigial manorial rights and tenures by grand serjeanty.

[5] Initially those who held land directly from the king by military service, from earls downwards, all bore alike the title of baron, which was thus the factor uniting all members of the ancient baronage as peers one of another.

John Selden writes in Titles of Honour, "The word Baro (Latin for 'baron') hath been also so much communicated, that not only all Lords of Mannors have been from ancient time, and are at this day called sometimes Barons (as in the stile of their Court Barons, which is Curia Baronis, &c. And I have read hors de son Barony in a barr to an Avowry for hors de son fee) But also the Judges of the Exchequer have it from antient time fixed on them.

"[7] Within a century of the Norman Conquest of 1066, as in the case of Thomas Becket in 1164, there arose the practice of sending to each greater baron a personal summons demanding his attendance at the King's Council, which evolved into the Parliament and later into the House of Lords, while as was stipulated in Magna Carta of 1215, the lesser barons of each county would receive a single summons as a group through the sheriff, and representatives only from their number would be elected to attend on behalf of the group.

[8] These representatives developed into the knights of the shire, elected by the county court presided over by the sheriff, who themselves formed the precursor of the House of Commons.

Thus appeared a definite distinction, which eventually had the effect of restricting to the greater barons alone the privileges and duties of peerage.

[8] Later, the king started to create new baronies in one of two ways: by a writ of summons directing a chosen man to attend Parliament, and in an even later development by letters patent.

Sir Thomas Innes of Learney, in his Scots Heraldry (2nd Ed., p. 88, note 1), states that "The Act 1672, cap 47, specially qualifies the degrees thus: Nobles (i.e. peers, the term being here used in a restricted seventeenth-century English sense), Barons (i.e. Lairds of baronial fiefs and their 'heirs', who, even if fiefless, are equivalent to heads of Continental baronial houses) and Gentlemen (apparently all other armigers)."

[8] Scottish barons were entitled to a red cap of maintenance (chapeau) turned up ermine if petitioning for a grant or matriculation of a coat of arms between the 1930s and 2004.

Occasionally, the great tilting-helm garnished with gold is shown, or a helmet befitting a higher rank, if held.

In 1815, King Louis XVIII created a new peerage system and a Chamber of Peers, based on the British model.

In pre-republican Germany all the knightly families of the Holy Roman Empire (sometimes distinguished by the prefix von or zu) eventually were recognised as of baronial rank, although Ritter is the literal translation for "knight", and persons who held that title enjoyed a distinct, but lower, rank in Germany's nobility than barons (Freiherren).

Subsequently, sovereigns in Germany conferred the title of Freiherr as a rank in the nobility, without implication of allodial or feudal status.

In modern, republican Germany, Freiherr and Baron remain heritable only as part of the legal surname (and may thereby be transmitted to husbands, wives and children, without implication of nobility).

Since the early 1800s, when feudalism was abolished in the various Italian states, it has often been granted as a simple hereditary title without any territorial designation or predicato.

Baron and noble (nobile) are hereditary titles and, as such, could only be created or recognised by the kings of Italy or (before 1860) the pre-unitary Italian states such as the Two Sicilies, Tuscany, Parma or Modena, or by the Holy See (Vatican) or the Republic of San Marino.

In most of peninsular Italy the widespread medieval introduction of the title was Longobardic, while in Sicily and Sardinia it was coeval with Norman rule some centuries later, and one referred to the baronage when speaking of landed nobles generally.

In the medieval era, some allodial and enfeoffed lands held by nobles were created or recognized as baronies by the Holy Roman Emperors, within whose realm most of the Low Countries lay.

Subsequently, the Habsburgs continued to confer the baronial title in the Southern Netherlands, first as kings of Spain and then, again, as emperors until abolition of the Holy Roman Empire, but these had become titular elevations rather than grants of new territory.

In the Netherlands after 1815, titles of baron authorized by previous monarchs (except those of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Holland) were usually recognized by the Dutch kings.

After its secession in 1830, Belgium incorporated into its nobility all titles of baron borne by Belgian citizens which had been recognized by the Netherlands since 1815.

Baron is the third lowest title within the nobility system above knight (French: chevalier, Dutch: ridder) and below viscount.

Since the Middle Ages, each head of a noble family had been entitled to a vote in any of Finland's provincial diets whenever held, as in the realm's House of Nobility of the Riksdag of the Estates.

Theoretically, in the 16th and 17th centuries, families elevated to vapaaherra status were granted a barony in fief, enjoying some rights of taxation and judicial authority.

This is the case with China's nanjue (nan-chueh) (Chinese: 男爵), hereditary title of nobility of the fifth rank, as well as its derivatives and adaptations.

In some republics of continental Europe, the unofficial title of "Baron" retains a purely social prestige, with no particular political privileges.

In the Polynesian island monarchy of Tonga, as opposed to the situation in Europe, barons are granted this imported title (in English), alongside traditional chiefly styles, and continue to hold and exercise some political power.