The baronage is the collectively inclusive term denoting all members of the feudal

Feudalism

Feudalism was a set of legal and military customs in medieval Europe that flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries, which, broadly defined, was a system for ordering society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.Although derived from the...

 nobility

Nobility

Nobility is a social class which possesses more acknowledged privileges or eminence than members of most other classes in a society, membership therein typically being hereditary. The privileges associated with nobility may constitute substantial advantages over or relative to non-nobles, or may be...

, as observed by the constitutional authority Edward Coke

Edward Coke

Sir Edward Coke SL PC was an English barrister, judge and politician considered to be the greatest jurist of the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras. Born into a middle class family, Coke was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge before leaving to study at the Inner Temple, where he was called to the...

. It was replaced eventually by the term “peerage

Peerage

The Peerage is a legal system of largely hereditary titles in the United Kingdom, which constitute the ranks of British nobility and is part of the British honours system...

”

Origin

The term originated at a time when there was only one substantive degree of nobility, that of the feudal baron

English feudal barony

In England, a feudal barony or barony by tenure was a form of Feudal land tenure, namely per baroniam under which the land-holder owed the service of being one of the king's barons. It must be distinguished from a barony, also feudal, but which existed within a county palatine, such as the Barony...

. This gave the responsibility of providing knights and troops for the royal feudal army. Barons could hold other executive offices apart from the duties they owed the king as the tenants-in-chief. However, immediately after the Norman Conquest of 1066 a very few barons held the function of earldom (equivalent to duke

Duke

A duke or duchess is a member of the nobility, historically of highest rank below the monarch, and historically controlling a duchy...

, pre-conquest), then not considered as a separate degree of nobility per se. An earl was at that time the highest executive office concerned with the administration of a shire

Shire

A shire is a traditional term for a division of land, found in the United Kingdom and in Australia. In parts of Australia, a shire is an administrative unit, but it is not synonymous with "county" there, which is a land registration unit. Individually, or as a suffix in Scotland and in the far...

. The earl held higher responsibilities than the sheriff

Sheriff

A sheriff is in principle a legal official with responsibility for a county. In practice, the specific combination of legal, political, and ceremonial duties of a sheriff varies greatly from country to country....

 (from shire-reeve). In Latin, a sheriff was referred to as a viscount

Viscount

A viscount or viscountess is a member of the European nobility whose comital title ranks usually, as in the British peerage, above a baron, below an earl or a count .-Etymology:...

 (from vice-comes, deputy to a count

Count

A count or countess is an aristocratic nobleman in European countries. The word count came into English from the French comte, itself from Latin comes—in its accusative comitem—meaning "companion", and later "companion of the emperor, delegate of the emperor". The adjective form of the word is...

), since earls were considered a count by the Normans.

Obligation to attend parliament

The privilege attached to this heavy burden was the right, indeed the obligation, to attend the king in his feudal court, the precursor of parliament

Parliament

A parliament is a legislature, especially in those countries whose system of government is based on the Westminster system modeled after that of the United Kingdom. The name is derived from the French , the action of parler : a parlement is a discussion. The term came to mean a meeting at which...

, termed the Council de Baronage. It was a standard part of the feudal contract that every tenant was under the obligation to attend his overlord's court to advise and support him, receiving in return his protection from outside hostile forces. Thus the sub-tenants of a tenant-in-chief, the lord of the manor within the jurisdiction of which they lived, were obliged to attend the manorial court, the sub-enfeoffed

Subinfeudation

In English law, subinfeudation is the practice by which tenants, holding land under the king or other superior lord, carved out new and distinct tenures in their turn by sub-letting or alienating a part of their lands....

 tenants of a baron were obliged to attend the curia baronis or “court baron”. The baron had no feudal superior but the king, and thus the king's court was the appropriate place for attendance by the barons, collectively forming the baronage.

Replacement by peerage

Eventually the executive office of earldom became redundant and the title of earl became in itself a title of nobility above that of baron, yet the baronage remained the collective term for both degrees, since earls continued nonetheless to hold their lands per baroniam. Possession of a barony was thus the common factor of the baronage. With the decline of the feudal system and the creation of barons by writ

Writ

In common law, a writ is a formal written order issued by a body with administrative or judicial jurisdiction; in modern usage, this body is generally a court...

 from 1265, that is to say by a personal summons from the king based on the recipient's personal characteristics rather than his form of land tenure, the feudal barony lost its claim as the qualifying factor for nobility, and the barony by writ, or by letters patent

Letters patent

Letters patent are a type of legal instrument in the form of a published written order issued by a monarch or president, generally granting an office, right, monopoly, title, or status to a person or corporation...

 from 1388, became altogether personal not territorial. Further degrees of nobility were likewise created by writ and patent, duke

Duke

A duke or duchess is a member of the nobility, historically of highest rank below the monarch, and historically controlling a duchy...

s, marquess

Marquess

A marquess or marquis is a nobleman of hereditary rank in various European peerages and in those of some of their former colonies. The term is also used to translate equivalent oriental styles, as in imperial China, Japan, and Vietnam...

es and viscount

Viscount

A viscount or viscountess is a member of the European nobility whose comital title ranks usually, as in the British peerage, above a baron, below an earl or a count .-Etymology:...

s and the term baronage was no longer adequate to describe all degrees of nobility collectively. Thus was coined the term peerage

Peerage

The Peerage is a legal system of largely hereditary titles in the United Kingdom, which constitute the ranks of British nobility and is part of the British honours system...

 to replace it.

Surviving vestiges

Yet the ancient usage of the barony as the sine qua non

Sine qua non

Sine qua non or condicio sine qua non refers to an indispensable and essential action, condition, or ingredient...

of the nobility continued until the 21st. c. All members of the peerage must be barons and in this respect the ancient concept of the baronage survives as the common denominator of the nobility. No commoner

Commoner

In British law, a commoner is someone who is neither the Sovereign nor a peer. Therefore, any member of the Royal Family who is not a peer, such as Prince Harry of Wales or Anne, Princess Royal, is a commoner, as is any member of a peer's family, including someone who holds only a courtesy title,...

 is ever elevated directly to a higher degree of nobility without the fiction of at the same time being created a baron, enabling him to join the baronage of ages past, which therefore still survives in this theoretical form. Thus the commoner Admiral John Jervis

John Jervis, 1st Earl of St Vincent

Admiral of the Fleet John Jervis, 1st Earl of St Vincent GCB, PC was an admiral in the Royal Navy and Member of Parliament in the United Kingdom...

 was elevated to the peerage in 1797 as Earl St Vincent, a fittingly high reward for his naval services, at the same time he was created the relatively lowly Baron Jervis. The same was the case in the 1980s on the elevation of Harold Macmillan

Harold Macmillan

Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, OM, PC was Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 10 January 1957 to 18 October 1963....

 to an earldom, when he was created a baron simultaneously. Such a barony is borne in gross that is to say it is never used by its holder but rather is submerged within his higher title. It may however emerge when used by his heir apparent to take a seat in the House of Lords by writ of acceleration

Writ of acceleration

A writ in acceleration, commonly called a writ of acceleration, was a type of writ of summons to the British House of Lords that enabled the eldest son and heir apparent of a peer with multiple peerage titles to attend the British House of Lords or Irish House of Lords, using one of his father's...

, that is to say where such son has particular political skills which the government of the day wishes to make available to itself in parliament. It may also be used without any legal or political substance as a courtesy title by the eldest son of an earl or higher noble.