English feudal barony
If the estate-in-land held by barony contained a significant castle as its caput baroniae[a] and if it was especially large – consisting of more than about 20 knight's fees (each loosely equivalent to a manor) – then it was termed an honour.
This was a specific policy of the Norman kings, to avoid establishing any one area under the control of a single lord.
The term honour is particularly useful for the eleventh and twelfth centuries, before the development of an extensive peerage hierarchy.
Such barons were not necessarily always from the greater Norman nobles, but were selected often on account of their personal abilities and usefulness.
Thus, for instance, Turstin FitzRolf, the relatively humble and obscure knight who had stepped in at the last minute to accept the position of Duke William's standard-bearer at the Battle of Hastings, was granted a barony which comprised well over twenty manors.
It bore no constant relation to the amount of land comprised by the barony, but was fixed by a bargain between the king and the baron.
This tenure gave the knight use of the fief and all its revenues, on condition that he should provide to the baron, now his overlord, 40 days of military service, complete with retinue of esquires, horses and armour.
It appears that the survey was designed to identify baronies from which a greater servitium debitum could in future be obtained by the king.
This was a practical measure because the early kings almost continually travelled around the kingdom, taking their court (i.e. administration) with them.
As baronies became fragmented over time due to failure of male heirs and descent via co-heiresses (see below), many of those who held per baroniam became holders of relatively small fiefdoms.
The king came to realise, from the complacency of the lesser barons with this new procedure, that in practice it was not tenure per baroniam which determined attendance at Parliament, but receipt of a writ of summons originated by himself.
The higher prelates such as archbishops and bishops were deemed to hold per baroniam, and were thus members of the baronage entitled to attend Parliament, indeed they formed the greatest grouping of all.
Marcher lords in Wales often held their lordships by right of conquest and appear to have been deemed feudal barons.
[7] The term "relief" implies "elevation", both words being derived from the Latin levo, to raise up, into a position of honour.
The early English jurist Henry de Bracton (died 1268) was one of the first writers to examine the concept of the feudal barony.
The power of the feudal barons to control their landholding was considerably weakened in 1290 by the statute of Quia Emptores.
Parliamentary titles of honour had been limited since the 15th century by the Modus Tenenda Parliamenta act, and could thenceforth only be created by writ of summons or letters patent.
