Honour (England)

For other uses, see Honor (disambiguation).

In medieval England, an Honour or Honor was a conventional name for large feudal land holdings held by a tenant-in-chief to the crown.[1] They were often in different counties and many later became the basis of English feudal baronies.

Composition

It could consist of a great lordship, with a significant castle as its caput baroniae, and more than about 20 knight's fees (each loosely equivalent to a manor), although some honours had hundreds of manors. A lordship could consist of anything from a field to vast territories all over England. Thus the designation honour can distinguish the large lordship from the small. The term has particular usefulness for the eleventh and twelfth centuries, before the development of an extensive peerage hierarchy.

The typical honour had properties scattered over several shires,[2] intermingled with the properties of others. This was a specific policy of the Norman kings, to avoid establishing any one area under the control of a single lord.[3][4] Usually, though, a more concentrated cluster existed somewhere. Here would lie the caput (head) of the honour, with a castle that gave its name to the honour and hosted the honour's court[2] and served as its administrative headquarters. The Leges Henrici Primi stated that tenants of an honour would have to go to the caput of the Lord, even if it was in another County.[2]

Holders of honours (and the kings to whom they reverted by escheat) often attempted to preserve the integrity of an honour over time, administering its properties as a unit, maintaining inheritances together, etc.

Usage

The term, widely used in Europe, was first used in England to indicate that an estate gave its holder honour, dignity and status.[2]

For a person to say "on my honour" was not just an affirmation of his or her integrity and rank, but the veracity behind that phrase meant he or she was willing to offer up estates as pledge and guarantee.[5]

England was seen as the King's honour.[2]

Traditional mediaeval honours

Traditional mediaeval property-based honours in England included:

References

  1. ^ Honour, Hull Domesday Project
  2. ^ a b c d e Corédon, Christopher (2004). "Honour". A Dictionary of Medieval Terms and Phrases. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer. p. 157. ISBN 978-1-84384-023-7.
  3. ^ "Glossary of Medieval Land Holding Terms – BOMC".
  4. ^ Alexander, J. J. (1941), "Early Barons of Torrington and Barnstaple", Report and Transactions of the Devonshire Association, 73: 154
  5. ^ Proctor, Tammy M. (2002). On My Honour: Guides and Souts in Interwar Britain. Vol. 92. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society. doi:10.2307/4144911. ISBN 978-0-87169-922-0. ISSN 0065-9746. JSTOR 4144911. {{cite book}}: |journal= ignored (help)
  6. ^ Greenway, D.E., ed. (1972). Charters of the Honour of Mowbray 1107–1191. London.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

Sources

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