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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Agback" data-source="post: 307762" data-attributes="member: 5328">Re: LONGWas there a date on that thing? Including many that are not titles of nobility. In England, the only titles of nobility are duke (duchess), marquess (marchioness), earl (countess), viscount (viscountess), and baron (baroness). All the others, including judges, eldest sons of kings and dukes, etc. etc. are not in point of law nobles, even thought they may be addressed as 'my lord'.Also, don't forget that the system developed over time. Before 1327-odd the only noble titles in England were 'earl' and 'lord'. Dukedoms in England were a development of the late mediaeval period. Marquessates and viscounties were introduced in Renaissance times (ie. under the Tudors), and baronetcies not until the Enlightenment (post-Restoration Stuarts).In other languages the sequence is different and often more elaborate [eg. German has herzog, prinz, and furst all corresponding roughly to an English duke or marquess, and several different sorts of graf (markgraf, landgraf, burggraf, graf] corresponding in theory to marquesses and earls). And in the legal tradition of the Continent a lot of people count as nobles who would not count as nobles in England, including, for example, all the children of an married couple of nobles, even if they are landless and without a title.Don't forget that archbishops, bishops, mitred abbots, abbots, archdeacons, archpriests, canons, priors, preceptors, many other ecclesiastics, and their female equivalents were often landed and to all intents and purposes noble. For example, in England until the Reformation, the Prior of the Order of St John took precedence before all untitled barons (ie. 'barons').Then there are idiosyncratic titles. One of the powerful vassals of the Dukes of Aquitaine was the Captal de Bouche, but there aren't captals anywhere else than Bouche.A final caution: don't get too wrapped up in the feudal pyramid and the hierachy of titles they told you about in school. The marquis of Gothia was a vassal of the Count of Toulouse. Many earls leased some of their fiefs from knights, and many knights and even yeomen were direct vassals of the King. No nobleman in England after the reign of Henry II (middle of the 12th century) held his title or main estates as a fief of anyone but the king.In French, the sequence is roughly roi, prince, duc, marquis, comte, vicomte, baron, chevalier. But there are anomalies.In German, the hierarchy is something like kaiser, könig, grossherzog, herzog, prinz, furst, markgraf, landgraf, graf, burggraf, freiherr, ritter.I'm not sure of the Spanish except that 'rey' is equivalent to 'king', 'duque' to 'duke', 'condé' to 'earl', and 'caballero' to 'knight'.And I can't provide much help at all with Hungarian, Polish, or Russian, nor with Swedish/Norwegian and Danish.Regards,Agback</blockquote>

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