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See also:PEERAGE (Fr. pairage, med. See also:Lat. paragium; M.E. Pere, 0. Fr. per, peer, later pair; Lat. See also:Paris, " equal ")
.
Although in See also:England the terms " See also:peerage," " See also:nobility," " See also:House of Lords " are in See also:common parlance frequently regarded as synonymous, in reality each expresses a different meaning
.
A See also:man may be a peer and yet not a member of the House of Lords, a member of the House of Lords and yet not strictly a peer; though all peers (as the See also:term is now understood) are members of the House of Lords either in esse or in posse
.
In the See also:United See also:Kingdom the rights, duties and privileges of peerage are centred in an individual; to the monarchial nations of the See also:Continent nobility conveys the See also:idea of See also:family, as opposed to See also:personal, See also:privilege
.
Etymologically " peers " are " equals " (pares), and in Anglo-See also:Norman days the word was invariably so understood
.
The feudal tenants-in-See also:chief of the See also:Crown were all the peers of each other, whether lords of one See also:manor or of a See also:hundred; so too a See also:bishop had his ecclesiastical
peer in a See also:brother bishop, and the tenants of a manor their peers in their See also:fellow-tenants
.
That even so See also:late as the reign of See also:
In England the term was general, in France technical
.
The See also:change in England was See also:gradual, and probably gathered force as the gulf between the greater barons and the lesser widened, until in course of See also:time, for judicial purposes, there came to be only two classes, the greater barons and the See also:rest of the See also:people
.
The barons remained triable by their own See also:order (i.e. by their peers), whilst the rest of the people rapidly became subject to the general practice and See also:procedure of the king's justices
.
The first use of the word " peers " as denoting those members of the baronage who were accustomed to receive regularly a See also:writ of See also:summons to See also:parliament is found in the See also:record of the proceedings against the Despensers in 1321 (See also:Stubbs, Const
.
Hist. ii
.
347), and from that time this restricted use of the word has remained its See also:ordinary sense
.
Properly to understand the growth and constitution of the peerage it is necessary to trace the changes which occurred in the position of the Anglo-Norman baronage, first Angiothrough the gradual strengthening of royal supre- Norman macy with the consequent decay of baronial See also:power Baronage• locally, and subsequently by the consolidation of See also:parliamentary institutions during the reigns of the first three See also:Edwards
.
Before the See also:conquest the See also:national See also:assembly of England (see PARLIAMENT) was the See also:Witan, a gathering of notables owing their presence only to personal See also:influence and See also:standing
.
The Saxon The See also:imposition of a modified feudal See also:system resulted Witena-
in a See also:radical alteration
.
Membership of the See also:Great gemot
.
See also:Councils of the Norman See also:kings was primarily an incident of
See also:tenure, one of the obligations the tenants-in-chief were See also:bound consequently throughout the See also:early years of See also:
The See also: The tenants-in-chief were termed generally barons (see See also:BARON) and may be regarded historically as the parents of the peers of later days . The pages of Domesday (ro86), the early Norman fiscal record of England, show how unevenly the land was distributed; of the fifteen hundred See also:odd tenants mentioned the See also:majority held but two or three manors, while a favoured few possessed more than a hundred each . Land was then the only source of See also:wealth, and the number of a baron's manors might well be regarded as a correct See also:index of his importance . The king's tenants owed yet another See also:duty, the service of attending the King's See also:Court (See also:curia regis), and out of this custom See also:grew the parliaments of later days . In theory all ~urKlng,s the king's tenants-in-chief, great and small, had a right to be See also:present as incident to their tenure . It has therefore been argued by some authorities that as the Conqueror's system of tenure constituted him the sole owner of the land, attendance at his courts was solely an incident of tenure, the Church having been compelled to accept the same conditions as those imposed on laymen . But, as already pointed out, the change in tenure had not been immediate, and there had been no general See also:forfeiture suffered by ecclesiastical bodies; as much by virtue of their personal and ecclesiastical importance as by right of tenure . The King's Court was held regularly at the three great festivals of the Church and at such other times as were deemed advisable . The assembly for several generations neither possessed nor pretended to any legislative See also:powers . Legislative power was a product of later years, and grew out of the custom of the Estates granting supplies only on See also:condition that their grievances were first redressed . The great bulk of the tenants were present for the purpose of assenting to special See also:taxation above and beyond their ordinary feudal dues . When necessary a general summons to attend was sent through the sheriff of every county, who controlled a system of local government which enabled him to reach every tenant . In course of time to a certain number of barons and high ecclesiastics, either from the great extent of their possessions, their See also:official duties about the king or their personal importance, it became customary to issue a personal writ of summons, thus distinguishing them from the general See also:mass summoned through the sheriff . That this custom was in being within a See also:century of the Conquest is clear from an incident in the See also:bitter fight for supremacy between See also:Archbishop See also:Becket and Henry II. in 1164 (Stubbs, Const . Hist. i . 504), it being recorded that the king withheld the Archbishop's personal summons to parliament, and put upon him the indignity of a summons through the sheriff . During the succeeding fifty years the See also:line becomes even more definite, though it is evident that the Crown sometimes disregarded the custom, as the barons are found complaining that many of their number deemed entitled to a personal summons had frequently been overlooked . The sequel to these complaints is found in Magna Carta, wherein it is provided that the archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls and greater barons are to be called up to the magna Carta See also:council by writ directed to each severally; and all and personal who hold of the king in chief, below the See also:rank of summons greater barons, are to be summoned by a general ht jo es writ addressed to the sheriff of their See also:shire.' Magna Barones . Carta thus indicates the existence of two definite sections of the king's tenants, a See also:division which had evidently persisted for some time . The " greater barons " are the immediate parents of the peerages of later days, every member of which for more than four centuries had a seat in the House of Lords . As for the rest of the tenants-in-chief, poorer in See also:estate and therefore of less consequence, it is sufficient here to See also:note that they See also:fell back into the general mass of country families, and that their representatives, the knights of the shire, after some hesitation, at length joined forces with the See also:city and burgher representatives to form the House of See also:Commons . In 1254, instead of the general summons through the sheriff to all the lesser tenants-in-chief, the king requires them to elect two knights for each shire to attend the council as the accredited representative of their See also:fellows . In of1254 ent the closing days of 1264 See also:Simon de See also:Montfort sum- moned to meet him early in 1265 the first parliament worthy of the name, a council in which prelates, earls and greater barons, knights of the shire, citizens and burghers were present, thus constituting a See also:representation of all classes of people . It has been argued that this assembly cannot be regarded as a full parliament, inasmuch as Simon de Montfort summoned personally only such members of the baronage as were favourable to his cause, and issued writs generally only to those counties and cities upon which he could rely to return representatives in support of his policy . Stubbs holds the view that the first assembly we ought to regard as a full parliament was the See also:Model Parliament which met at See also:Westminster in 1295 . This model parliament, unlike Simon's See also:partisan assembly of Parliament 1265, was See also:free and representative . To every spiritual of1295 . ' Et ab habendum See also:commune consilium regni . summoneri faciemus archiepiscopos, episcopos, abbates, comites et majores barones sigillatim per litteras nostras et praeterea faciemus summoners in generali per vicecomes et ballivos nostros omnes illos qui de nobis tenent in capite (cited in Stubbs, Const . Hist. i . 547 n.) . and temporal baron accustomed to receive an individual writ, one was issued . Every county elected its knights and every city or See also:borough of any importance was instructed by the sheriff to elect and to return its allotted number of representatives . Stubbs's view (See also:Coast . Hist. ii . 223) may probably be regarded as authoritative, inasmuch as it was adopted by See also:Lord See also:Ashbourne in the See also:Norfolk peerage See also:case of 1906 (See also:Law Reports [1907], A.C. at p . 15) .
See also:Edward I. held frequent parliaments throughout his reign, and although many must be regarded as merely baronial councils, nevertheless See also:year after year, on all important occasions, the knights of the shire and the citizens appear in their places
.
The parliament of Shrews-See also:bury in 1283, for instance, has been claimed as a full parliament in several peerage cases, but no clear decision on the point has ever been given by the See also:Committee for Privileges
.
It may be taken for granted, however, that any assembly held since 1295, which did not conform substantially to the model of that year, cannot be regarded constitutionally as a full parliament
.
The point is even of See also:modern importance, as in order to establish the existence of a See also:barony by writ it must be proved that the claimant's ancestor was summoned by individual writ to a full parliament, and that either he himself or one of his direct descendants was present in parliament
.
It is now convenient to consider the various grades into which the members of the peerage are grouped, and their Grades of relative positions
.
An examination of the early writs Peerage. issued to individuals shows that the baronage See also:con-
sisted of archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, earls and barons
.
In course of time every member of these classes came to hold his land by feudal tenure from the Crown, and eventually in every instance the writs issued as an incident of tenure
.
It is therefore necessary to discover, if possible, what See also:combination of attributes clothed the greater baron with a right to receive the king's personal writ of summons
.
While the archbishops and bishops received their writs with regularity, the summonses to heads of ecclesiastical houses and greater barons were intermittent
.
The See also:prelate held an See also:office which lived on regardless of the See also:fate of its temporary holder, and if by See also:reason of See also:death, See also:absence or See also:translation the office became vacant, a writ still issued to the " See also:Guardian of the Spiritualities." The See also: The conclusion, then, may be See also:drawn that in theory the issue of a writ was at the See also:pleasure of the Crown, and that in practice the moving See also:factor in the case of the prelates was office and personal importance, and in the case of abbots and barons probably, in the main, extent of See also:possession . There is nothing however to show that in the early years of the custom any person had a right to claim a writ if it were the king's pleasure or caprice to withhold it and to treat everyone not summoned individually as being duly summoned under the general writs issued to the sheriff of the county . The next point for consideration is when did the peerage, as the baronage subsequently came to be called, develop into Hereditary a body definitely hereditary ? Here again growth Prledple, was gradual and somewhat obscure . Throughout the reigns of the Edwards summonses were not always issued to the same individual for successive parliaments; and it is quite certain that the king never considered the issue of one writ to an individual bound the Crown to its repetition for the rest of his See also:life, much less to his heirs in See also:perpetuity . Again we must look to tenure for an explanation . The custom of See also:primogeniture tended to secure estates in strict family succession, and if extent of possession had originally extracted the See also:acknowledgment of a personal summons from the Crown it is more than probable that as successive heirs came into their See also:inheritance they too would similarly be acknowledged . In early days the summons was a See also:burden to be suffered of necessity, an unpleasant incident of tenure, in itself undesirable, and probably so regarded by the majority of recipients during at least the two centuries following the Conquest . The See also:age of the Edwards was in the main a See also:rule of settled law, of increase in See also:population generally, of growing power in the laxge landowners and of opportunities for those about the person of the king . The times were changing, and in place of the idea of the writ being a burden, its See also:receipt gradually came to be looked upon as a See also:mark of royal favour, a recognition of position and an opportunity leading on to See also:fortune . Once such a view was established it is easy to understand how desirous any individual would be to preserve so valuable a prix See also:liege for his posterity; and primogeniture with its strict See also:settlement of estates pointed out an easy way . The Crown was itself an hereditary dignity; and what more natural than that it should be surrounded by an hereditary peerage ? Thus the free and indiscriminate choice of the Crown became fettered by the custom that once a summons had been issued to an individual to sit in parliament and he had obeyed that summons he thereby acquired a right of summons for the rest of his lifetime; and in later years when the See also:doctrine of nobility of See also:blood became established his descendants were held to have acquired the same privilege by hereditary right . The earl's position in the baronage needs some explanation . Various suggestions have been made as to Saxon or Norman origin of a high official nature, but historical See also:opinion Earldoms. seems generally to incline towards the theory that the term was a name of dignity conferred by royal prerogative on a person already classed among the greater barons . At first the dignity was official and certainly not hereditary, and the name of a county of which he is said to have been an officer in the king's name was not essential to his dignity as an earl . There were also men who, though Scottish and Norman earls, and commonly so addressed and summoned to parliament, were rated in England as barons (Lords Reports, ii . 116, 120; Earldom of Norfolk Peerage Case, Law Reports [1907], A.C. p . 18) . Earls received individual summonses to parliament by the name of Earl (q.v.); but there is reason to believe, as already mentioned, that in early days at any See also:rate they sat not in right of their earldoms but by tenure as members of the baronage . If we See also:review the See also:political situation at the beginning of the 14th century a great change is evident . The line between those members of the baronage in parliament and writ the rest of the people is firmly and clearly drawn . Supersedes Tenure as the sole qualification for presence in the Tenure. national assembly has disappeared, and in its place there appears for the baronage a system of royal selection and for the rest of the people one of representation . The rules and customs of law See also:relating to the baronage slowly crystallized so as to provide the House of Lords, the See also:history of which for generations is the history of the peerage of England, whilst the representative See also:part of parliament, after shedding the See also:lower See also:clergy, ultimately became the House of Commons . Until the reign of Richard II. there is no trace of any use of the term baron (q.v.) as importing a personal dignity existing apart from the tenure of land, barons owing their seats in parliament to tenure and writ combined . This is See also:borne out by the fact that a See also:husband was often summoned to parliament in his wife's right and name, and while she lived fulfilled those feudal, military and parliamentary obligations attached to her lands which the See also:physical disabilities of See also:sex prevented her from carrying out in her own person (See also:Pike, House of Lords, p . 103) . Primogeniture, a custom somewhat uncertain in early Anglo-Norman days, had rapidly See also:developed into a definite rule of law . As feudal dignities were in their origin inseparable Peersye from the tenure of land it is not surprising that they becomes a too followed a similar course of descent, although Personal as the idea of a dignity being exclusively personal Dignity. gradually emerged, some necessary deviations from the rules of law relating to the descent of land inevitably resulted . In the See also:eleventh year of his reign Richard II. created by letters patent John See also:Beauchamp " Lord de Beauchamp and baron of Kydder- able quality which ennobles the blood of the holder and his mynster, to hold to him and the heirs of his body." These letters patent were not founded on any right by tenure of land possessed by Beauchamp, for the king makes him " for his See also:good services and in respect of the place which he had See also:holden at the See also:coronation (i.e. steward of the See also:household) and might in future hold in the king's councils and parliaments, and for his noble descent, and his abilities and discretion, one of the peers and barons of the kingdom of England; willing that the said John and the heirs-male of his body issuing, should have the See also:state of baron and should be called by the name of Lord de Beauchamp and Baron of Kyddermynster." The grant rested wholly on the See also:grace and favour of the Crown and was a personal See also:reward for services rendered . Here then is a barony entirely a personal dignity and quite unconnected with land . From Richard's reign to the present See also:day baronies (and indeed all other peerage honours) have continued to be conferred by patent . The custom of summons by writ was not in any way interfered with, the patent operating merely to declare the dignity and to define its See also:devolution . Summons alone still continued See also:side by side for many generations with summons founded on patent; but after the reign of Henry VIII. the former method fell into disuse, and during the last two hundred and fifty years there have been no new creations by writ of summons alone.' So from the reign of Richard II. barons were of two classes, the older, and more See also:ancient in lineage summoned by writ alone, the honours descending to heirs-general, and the newer created by letters patent, the terms of which governed the issue of the summons and prescribed the devolution of the peerage in the line almost invariably of the. direct male descendants of the person first ennobled . The principle of hereditary succession so clearly recognized in the Beauchamp creation is good evidence to show that a prescriptive right of hereditary summons probably existed in those families whose members had long been accustomed to receive individual writs . By the time the House of See also:Lancaster was firmly seated on the See also:throne it may be taken that the peerage had become a body of men possessing well-defined personal privileges and holding personal dignities capable of descending to their heirs .
The early origin of peerages was so closely connected with
the tenure of land that the idea long prevailed that there were
originally peerages by tenure only, i.e. dignities
Peerages by
or titles annexed to the possession (and so following Tenure
.
it on See also:alienation) of certain lands held in chief of the king
.
The older writers, Glanville (bk. ix. cc
.
4, 6) and See also:Bracton (bk. ii. c
.
16), lend some See also:colour to the view
.
They are followed, but not very definitely, by See also:Coke, See also:Selden and Madox
.
See also:Black-See also:
6o et seq.)
.
The main attribute of a peerage is that hereditary and inalien-
' Not intentional at any rate
.
In some cases where it was in-tended to See also:call a son up is, his See also:father's barony, a See also:mistake in the name has been made with the result that a new peerage by writ of summons has been created
.
The barony of See also:Buller, of See also:Moore See also:Park (cr
.
1663), now in See also:abeyance, is said to be an instance of such a mistake
.
heirs, or, as a great judge put it in 1625 in the Earldom of See also:Oxford case, " he cannot See also:alien or give away this in-
heritance because it is a personal dignity annexed Averages laa/lenab/e
.
to the posterity and fixed in the blood " (Dodridge,
J., at p
.
123, See also:Sir W
.
See also: Finally we may accept the See also:verdict in the Fitzwalter case of 1669 (Cruise, ibid. p . 66), which was adopted by the House of Lords in the Berkeley case: " and the nature of a barony by tenure being discussed, it was found to have been discontinued for many ages, and not in being, and so not See also:fit to be revived or to admit any pretence or right of succession thereupon." Until the reign of Edward III. the peerage consisted only of high ecclesiastics, earls and barons . The earls were barons with their special name of dignity added, and their See also:Dukes. names always appear on the rolls before those of the barons . In 1337 King Edward created his son, the Black See also:Prince, See also:duke of See also:Cornwall, giving him See also:precedence over the rest of the peerage . The letters patent (under which the present heir to the throne now holds the dukedom) limited the dignity in perpetuity to the first-See also:born son of the king of England ? Subsequently several members of the royal family were created dukes, but no subject received such an honour until fifty years later, when Richard II. created his favourite See also:Robert de See also:Vere, earl of Oxford, duke of See also:Ireland (for life) . The See also:original intention may have been to confine the dignity to the blood royal, as with the exception of de Vere it was some years before a dukedom was again conferred on a subject . In 1385 Richard II. had created Robert de Vere See also: |