The term paramount derives from the Anglo-Norman paramont ("up above") or par a mont ("atop the mountain") and was used to indicate the lord who was the highest authority for a given location.
This latter term, however, was confused by later lawyers with "avail" in its senses of help, assistance, and profit and was eventually applied only to the actual occupiers or tenants who worked the land themselves.
Generally speaking, under English law after the 1066 Norman Conquest, only the sovereign—the king or queen—was truly lord paramount in its larger sense.
The peculiar way in which the baron holding the Lordship of Bowland oversaw himself—some of his estates notionally owing service to others—has also been described in terms of paramouncy and obligation.
In the latter case, the High Court affirmed that Elizabeth II was lord paramount over all formal land tenure in Australia while simultaneously establishing the concept of a native title over areas not explicitly legally held by others and continuously occupied by aboriginal people.