Courtesy Titles

Whilst compiling my Kingmaker cards I'm come across the anomaly of
several titles held by noble's sons which are generally known
as "courtesey" titles.
These are, for 1453:
Earl of March, held by Edward of York;
Earl of Rutland, held by Edmund of York;
Earl of Stafford, held by the son of the Duke of Buckingham;
Lord Bardolf, held by the heir of Viscount Beaumont.

Later on were added:
Viscount Bourchier, the heir of the Earl of Essex;
Lord Maltravers, son of the Earl of Arundel;
Lord Dunster, held by the heir of Lord Herbert.

We could of course add the titles held by the Prince of Wales from
birth.

The question I'm asking is to what extent were these titles genuine
Peerages? Were these Earls and Barons in the full sense, with
summonses to Parliament and their place in the order of precedence?
What leads me to question this is that, as sons of existing Peers,
they would have had no landed income of their own and therefore could
not, as the language of the time insisted, "support the dignity".
Or were they, in fact, given estates by their fathers sufficient to
meet the requirements of annual income? I've found no evidence to
this effect with, for example, the Duchy of York estates all seeming
to be held together as a unit. Did Edward of March actually receive
the income from the Mortimer estates?

I'm excluding those sons of Peers who held titles in right of their
wives, such as Warwick, Molines and Poynings.

the earl of march was associated the honour of clare, which were the mortimer and other families intermarried into the mortimer family estates.

one de grey family i'm investigating was paying half and quarter fees to the honour of clare for several centuries. (their ancestors were de clare heiresses.)

you need to go back prior to the 1200's to gain an understanding how the knights fees were derived.

they used a term, parrage, from which peerage evolved.

under parrage, the eldest child/son did not necessarily inherit all the land held by the father. the land was shared out to all of the children in the family, sons and daughters.

X amount of land meant a knights fee. meaning you had to supply a knight and retinue to the king at his command.

so four brothers might hold one piece of land, ergo each had a responsibility to "pay" one quarter of a knight's fee for that piece of land. moreover, the brothers could decide/nominate who the "family knight" was, voluntary or not...but one or more of them must go serve the king if commanded. the more land a family had, the more there was the disecting of it into half/quarters etc.

eventually the peerage realised "the" family land base was dwindling generation after generation, and that's when the first born surviving son "gets it all" policy popped up it's ugly head.

land meant power and wealth.

i know nothing about the other earldoms you mentioned. i've been tracking the honour of clare.
regards
roslyn
theblackprussian <theblackprussian@...> wrote:


Whilst compiling my Kingmaker cards I'm come across the anomaly of
several titles held by noble's sons which are generally known
as "courtesey" titles.
These are, for 1453:
Earl of March, held by Edward of York;
Earl of Rutland, held by Edmund of York;
Earl of Stafford, held by the son of the Duke of Buckingham;
Lord Bardolf, held by the heir of Viscount Beaumont.

Later on were added:
Viscount Bourchier, the heir of the Earl of Essex;
Lord Maltravers, son of the Earl of Arundel;
Lord Dunster, held by the heir of Lord Herbert.

We could of course add the titles held by the Prince of Wales from
birth.

The question I'm asking is to what extent were these titles genuine
Peerages? Were these Earls and Barons in the full sense, with
summonses to Parliament and their place in the order of precedence?
What leads me to question this is that, as sons of existing Peers,
they would have had no landed income of their own and therefore could
not, as the language of the time insisted, "support the dignity".
Or were they, in fact, given estates by their fathers sufficient to
meet the requirements of annual income? I've found no evidence to
this effect with, for example, the Duchy of York estates all seeming
to be held together as a unit. Did Edward of March actually receive
the income from the Mortimer estates?

I'm excluding those sons of Peers who held titles in right of their
wives, such as Warwick, Molines and Poynings.






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