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The British nobility is made up of the peerage and the gentry of the British Isles. Though the UK is today a constitutional monarchy with strong democratic elements, historically the British Isles were more predisposed towards aristocratic governance in which power was largely inherited and shared amongst a noble class.
Members of a formerly sovereign or mediatized house rank higher than the nobility. Among the nobility, those whose titles derive from the Holy Roman Empire rank higher than the holder of an equivalent title granted by one of the German monarchs after 1806. In Austria, nobility titles may no longer be used since 1918. [44]
This is an incomplete index of the current and historical principal family seats of English royal, titled and landed gentry families. Some of these seats are no longer occupied by the families with which they are associated, and some are ruinous – e.g. Lowther Castle.
English Peeresses obtained their first seats in the House of Lords under the Peerage Act 1963 from which date until the passage of the House of Lords Act 1999 all Peers of England could sit in the House of Lords. The ranks of the English peerage are, in descending order, duke, marquess, earl, viscount, and baron. While most newer English ...
The term peerage can be used both collectively to refer to this entire body of titled nobility (or a subdivision thereof), and individually to refer to a specific title (modern English language-style using an initial capital in the latter case but not the former). British peerage title holders are termed peers of the Realm.
Aaron Chown/WPA Pool/Getty Images. Examples: The Duke and Duchess of Sussex . The highest degree of the British peerage system, a duke or duchess title is traditionally granted to a prince and his ...
In the 7th century, the common Old English terms for nobility was eorl or eorlcund man. However, this was later replaced by the term thegn. [4] In the 11th century, under Danish influence, the Old English title ealdorman became earl, from the Old Norse word jarl. [5] Proto-Norse eril, or the later Old Norse jarl, came to signify the rank of a ...
The history of the British peerage, a system of nobility found in the United Kingdom, stretches over the last thousand years. The current form of the British peerage has been a process of development. While the ranks of baron and earl predate the British peerage itself, the ranks of duke and marquess were introduced to England in the