My lord Earl and his wife the ??????

[jgbrowning]

well

I was actually looking for precedence and peerage information for the earlier period of 1350-1500 or so and the best i could find was from a book written in the late 1500's... that one of course didn't mention the earl/countess thingy.

and well, romance novels... they have such ...interesting... uses of language...


joe b.
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my friend Jim, reading aloud, "He kissed her lovingly."
me, "Where's 'her lovingly'?"
Jim, "Somewhere close to 'her passionately'. Shut up.. I'm getting to the good part where he says, 'I'm going to ride you until you yield or crumble like a biscuit.'"
me, "Homemade or Pillsbury?"

*me, ducking thrown book*

 

[Gez]

And what about a thane's wife ? Thaness ? Or baroness (I believe thane is synonym to baron).

Just being curious. Me, I'm French, so it's easier:

Roi/Reine
Prince/Princesse
Duc/Duchesse
Marquis/Marquise
Comte/Comtesse
Vicomte/Vicomtesse
Baron/Baronne

And also roitelet (minor king)/"roitelette" (never seen it used) and baronnet/baronnette. One fun thing is that such minor nobles are often given bird names. An aristocrat of little nobility, with few land, would be called a hobereau (from the faucon hobereau, falco subbuteo, because that hawk is much smaller than the king of falcons, falco peregrinus).

 

[Tonguez]

The difference between Earl and Count is that Earl is a Anglo-Saxon word in origin (ie Jarl) whereas Count is latin derived

the word Count means Companion (of the Monarch) and indicates a Lord of the County - the person who employed (or sometimes acted as) the Shire Reeve (Sheriff)

Marquis is a Lord of the Marches (Border Counties) they are a higher rank becuase the borders were often subject to raids and the Lord had to have wider powers of martial law (ie the ability to raise an army in their own right as a Duke can)

Duke derives from the Latin word Dux "Commander' and are the head of armies.

 

[Agback]

Duke derives from the Latin word Dux "Commander' and are the head of armies.

'Dux' is better translated as 'leader' than as 'commander'. The Latin for 'commander' is 'imperator', the word from which 'emperor' is derived.

Regards,


Agback