Wombat said:
Earls of English history (more or less based on the older title Jarl, kind of equivalent to a Count, but some are as powerful as Dukes, a title that was little used in England until the later Middle Ages).
That's right. Before the Norman Conquest the English earls were basically the equivalent of French ducs: successors of the rulers of formerly independent states that had been conquered and absorbed by the kingdom. The Anglo-Saxon chronicles translate William's French title 'duc' as 'earl'. But when William introduced feudalism to England about 1070 (after defeating Hereward's rebellion) he reduced the status of earls to the equivalent of French comtes: delegates of the king. And increased their number enormously. The French title 'vicomte', which in Nothern France designated a sort of administrative deputy of the comte (count), was used in Norman-French administrative records to represent the English title 'sheriff' (an administrative deputy of the King governing a shire). Meanwhile in the South of France, where they didn't have primogeniture, the title 'vicomte' was used by people who inherited part of one of the old Carolingian or Burgundian counties, or who siezed the sort of authority of a count (comte) without a royal delegation of power.
The title 'duke' got introduced into England only at the end of the mediaeval period, as a cheap gift from the King to a favourite. It gave the king's friend or relative precedence over the other earls, but no actual authority. No English duke ever had an earl as vassal, though some French ducs did have comtes as vassals.
'Marquess' was introduced later still, and following the theory that a mark-graf was a graf (count) with a borderland county and special powers, it was slotted in between dukes and earls. This despite the fact that at least one French comte (the comte de Toulouse) had had marquises (the marquises of Septimania and Gothia) as vassals.
In England in the greater part of the mediaeval period, 'lord' (represented in Norman-French records as 'messire') was a courtesy title, with no hard-and-fast rule as to whether a person was or was not entitled to it. The king's sons (before the creation of the Principality of Wales as an appanage) were always called 'lord' as were earls, bishops, abbots, and anyone who held the post of castellan of a castle (or owned one!). But a landed might be called 'lord' if the person addressing him wanted to be flattering, obsequieous, or extra-polite, but it was not an affront to address him merely as 'sir', like a landless knight or a parish priest.
Anyone with his own troops was a baron, including everyone from landed knights with multiple fees to great magnates with multiple earldoms.
Regards,
Agback