Earl
The title originates in the Old English word eorl, meaning "a man of noble birth or rank".
Alternative names for the rank equivalent to "earl" or "count" in the nobility structure are used in other countries, such as the hakushaku (伯爵) of the post-restoration Japanese Imperial era.
[4] In the 11th century, under Danish influence, the Old English title ealdorman became earl, from the Old Norse word jarl.
[6] The Norman-derived equivalent count (from Latin comes) was not introduced following the Norman Conquest of England though countess was and is used for the female title.
Geoffrey Hughes writes, "It is a likely speculation that the Norman French title 'Count' was abandoned in England in favour of the Germanic 'Earl' [...] precisely because of the uncomfortable phonetic proximity to cunt".
[7] In the other languages of Great Britain and Ireland, the term is translated as: Welsh iarll,[8] Irish and Scottish Gaelic iarla,[9][10] Scots erle, eirle or earle,[11] Cornish yurl, yarl, yerl.
[14] During Cnut's reign (1016–1035), ealdorman changed to earl (related to Old English eorl and Scandinavian jarl).
[5][15][note 2] Cnut's realm, the North Sea Empire, extended beyond England, forcing him to delegate power to earls.
[18] Earls were governors or viceroys, ruling in the king's name, keeping the peace, dispensing justice, and raising armies.
[26] Stephen Baxter argued that given the evidence, it must be "assumed that the 'comital manors' in each shire could be transferred by the king from one earl to another with relative ease".
Ralf of Mantes, Edward's Norman nephew, was made earl of Hereford, a territory formerly part of Sweyn's earldom.
[37] Like Norman counts, earls became military governors assigned to vulnerable border or coastal areas.
Likewise, the king's half-brother Odo of Bayeux was made earl of Kent to guard the English Channel.
[38] After the Revolt of the Earls in 1075, only four earldoms remained, all held by Anglo-Normans: Kent, Shrewsbury, Chester, and Northumbria.
The same year, Geoffrey de Mandeville was made earl of Essex, and his is the oldest surviving charter of creation.
[44] In February 1141, Stephen was captured at the Battle of Lincoln, and Empress Matilda elected "Lady of the English" in April.
During his reign, "the title became a mark of rank, rather than a substantive office: the real power lay with the king's sheriffs and justices.
His lands were divided between his four sisters with the title going to the eldest's son, John of Scotland, Earl of Huntingdon.
Earl Ranulf had been the greatest landholder in England, but after two partitions in five years, the land granted to each co-heir was small.
William de Forz, husband of the senior co-heir, argued that as a county palatine the earldom of Chester should not be partitioned, but this argument was rejected by the king's court.
[49] In 1227, Henry III (r. 1216–1272) granted his justiciar and chief minister, Hubert de Burgh, the earldom of Kent.
[51] The first Irish earldom was the Earl of Ulster, granted to the Norman knight Hugh de Lacy in 1205 by John, King of England and Lord of Ireland.
It is important to distinguish between the land controlled directly by the earl, in a landlord-like sense, and the region over which he could exercise his office.
Thus, unlike England, the term county, which ultimately evolved from the Latin comitatus, was not historically used for Scotland's main political subdivisions.
By the 16th century there started to be earls of towns, of villages, and even of isolated houses; it had simply become a label for marking status, rather than an office of intrinsic power.
In 1746, in the aftermath of the Jacobite rising, the Heritable Jurisdictions Act brought the powers of the remaining ancient earldoms under the control of the sheriffs; earl is now simply a noble rank.
As Wales remained independent of any Norman jurisdiction, the more powerful Earls in England were encouraged to invade and establish effective "buffer states" to be run as autonomous lordships.
Tir Iarll (English: Earl's land) is an area of Glamorgan, which has traditionally had a particular resonance in Welsh culture.
For instance, prior to his father's elevation to the Dukedom of Edinburgh, the eldest son of the Earl of Wessex was styled as James, Viscount Severn.
There are many earldoms, extant, extinct, dormant, abeyant, or forfeit, in the peerages of England, Scotland, Great Britain, Ireland and the United Kingdom.
