Baronies, Lordships and Earldoms etc.

We are often asked to explain the difference between the titles we offer for re-assignation. All Scottish feudal titles come under the generic name of ‘barony’. When the lands were granted the erection of those lands into barony, lordship, earldom, marquisate or dukedom depended entirely on the social status of the person who was receiving the grant of the land (the grantee). When a ‘lord’ acquired land his Charter of Resignation*, if the monarch was minded to grant him baronial status, would name the land ‘the Lordship of ..’ and likewise when an earl acquired land it would be named ‘the Earldom of ..’. In practice of course these gentlemen already owned considerable amounts of land and if the new lands that they acquired were adjacent to their existing land they would get a charter of Novadamus extending their existing barony, lordship or earldom. If, on the other hand their new lands were not conterminous with land already owned they might get a grant of ‘the barony of … part of the earldom of …’

So to sum up; all Scottish titles originally based on land ownership are barony titles of one sort or another.

* Charter of Resignation, Charter of Confirmation, Charter of Erection.
A Charter of Erection is the charter that erects land into its baronial status. The Charter of Confirmation usually confirms a transfer of land between family members. A Charter of Resignation is granted after the sale of land. The theory of feudalism required a personal relationship with the crown and so when land was sold the land was resigned back into the hands of the crown and the crown made the grant to the new purchaser. It was a bit more complicated than that; the seller granted a feu disposition to the purchaser so that in the unlikely event that the crown would not accept the new purchaser as a vassal the original owner remained the crown vassal and the new owner became another vassal in the feudal chain.

Please contact us for more information.