See The Peerage
Peer, a member of The Peerage; Landed Gentry - Aristocracy / Aristocracy (class) and related to the term “Peer of the Realm”
Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The appellation can also denote certain persons who hold a title of the peerage in the United Kingdom, or are entitled to courtesy titles. The collective "Lords" can refer to a group or body of peers.
A seigneur (French pronunciation: [sɛɲœʁ] ) or lord is an originally feudal title in France before the Revolution, in New France and British North America until 1854, and in the Channel Islands to this day. The seigneur owned a seigneurie, seigneury, or lordship—a form of title or land tenure—as a fief, with its associated obligations and rights over person and property. In this sense, a seigneur could be an individual—male or female, high or low-born—or a collective entity, typically a religious community such as a monastery, seminary, college, or parish. In the wake of the French Revolution, seigneurialism was repealed in France on 4 August 1789 and in the Province of Canada on 18 December 1854. Since then, the feudal title has only been applicable in the Channel Islands and for sovereign princes by their families.
An overlord in the English feudal system was a lord of a manor who had subinfeudated a particular manor, estate or fee, to a tenant. The tenant thenceforth owed to the overlord one of a variety of services, usually military service or serjeanty, depending on which form of tenure (i.e. feudal tenancy contract) the estate was held under. The highest overlord of all, or lord paramount, was the monarch, who due to his ancestor William the Conqueror's personal conquest of the Kingdom of England, owned by inheritance from him all the land in England under allodial title and had no superior overlord, "holding from God and his sword", although certain monarchs, notably King John (1199–1216) purported to grant the Kingdom of England to Pope Innocent III, who would thus have become overlord to English monarchs.
A paramount lord may then be seen to occupy the apex of the feudal pyramid, or the root of the feudal tree, and such allodial title is also termed "radical title" (from Latin radix, root), "ultimate title" and "final title". William the Conqueror immediately set about granting tenancies on his newly won lands, in accordance with feudal principles. The monarch's immediate tenants were the tenants-in-chief, usually military magnates, who held the highest status in feudal society below the monarch. The tenants-in-chief usually held multiple manors or other estates from the monarch, often as feudal barons (or "barons by tenure") who owed their royal overlord an enhanced and onerous form of military service, and subinfeudated most to tenants, generally their own knights or military followers, keeping only a few in demesne. This created a mesne lord – tenant relationship. The knights in turn subinfeudated to their own tenants, creating a further subsidiary mesne lord – tenant relationship. Over the centuries for any single estate the process was in practice repeated numerous times.
In early times, following the Norman Conquest of England of 1066 and the establishment of feudalism, land was usually transferred by subinfeudation, rarely by alienation (i.e. sale), which latter in the case of tenants-in-chief required royal licence, and the holder of an estate at any particular time, in order to gain secure tenure, and if challenged by another claimant, needed to prove "devolution of title" evidenced by legal deeds or muniments back up the chain of subinfeudations to a holder whose title was beyond doubt, for example one who had received the estate as a grant by royal charter witnessed and sealed by substantial persons. Although feudal land tenure in England was abolished by the Tenures Abolition Act 1660, in modern English conveyancing law the need to prove devolution of title persisted until recent times, due to a "legal fiction" (grounded in reality) that all land titles were held by the monarch's subjects as a result of a royal grant. Proving devolution of title is no longer necessary since the creation of the land registry. There is a requirement to compulsorily register all land transactions on this governmental record, which registration provides a virtually unchallengeable and perfectly secure title of ownership.
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the lower house, the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. One of the oldest extant institutions in the world, its origins lie in the early 11th century and the emergence of bicameralism in the 13th century.
In contrast to the House of Commons, membership of the Lords is not generally acquired by election. Most members are appointed for life, on either a political or non-political basis. Hereditary membership was limited in 1999 to 92 excepted hereditary peers: 90 elected through internal by-elections, plus the Earl Marshal and Lord Great Chamberlain as members ex officio. No members directly inherit their seats any longer. The House of Lords also includes up to 26 archbishops and bishops of the Church of England, known as Lords Spiritual. Since 2014, membership may be voluntarily relinquished or terminated upon expulsion.
As the upper house of Parliament, the House of Lords has many similar functions to the House of Commons. It scrutinises legislation, holds the government to account, and considers and reports upon public policy. Peers may also seek to introduce legislation or propose amendments to bills. While it is unable to prevent bills passing into law, except in certain limited circumstances, it may delay the enactment of bills for up to one year. In this capacity, as a body independent from the pressures of the political process, the House of Lords is said to act as a "revising chamber" focusing on legislative detail, while occasionally asking the House of Commons to reconsider its plans.
While peers may also serve as government ministers, they are typically only selected to serve as junior ministers, except for the Leader of the House of Lords. The House of Lords does not control the term of the prime minister or of the government; only the Commons may vote to require the prime minister to resign or call an election. Unlike the House of Commons, which has a defined number of seats, the number of members in the House of Lords is not fixed. As of 1 April 2025, it has 829 sitting members.
The King's Speech is delivered in the House of Lords chamber during the State Opening of Parliament. In addition to its role as the upper house, the House of Lords, through the Law Lords, acted as the final court of appeal in the United Kingdom judicial system until the establishment of the Supreme Court in 2009.
The House of Lords is the only upper house of any bicameral parliament in the world to be larger than its lower house. It is the second-largest legislative chamber in the world, behind the National People's Congress of China.
The House of Lords also has a Church of England role, in that Church Measures must be tabled within the House by the Lords Spiritual. The United Kingdom is one of only two countries in the world to award religious figures a permanent seat in the legislature, the other being Iran.
The landed gentry, or the gentry (sometimes collectively known as the squirearchy), is a largely historical Irish and British social class of landowners who could live entirely from rental income, or at least had a country estate. It is the British element of the wider European class of gentry. While part of the British aristocracy, and usually armigers, the gentry ranked below the British peerage (or "titled nobility") in social status. Nevertheless, their economic base in land was often similar, and some of the landed gentry were wealthier than some peers. Many gentry were close relatives of peers, and it was not uncommon for gentry to marry into peerage. With or without noble title, owning rural land estates often brought with it the legal rights of the feudal lordship of the manor, and the less formal name or title of squire, in Scotland laird.
Generally lands passed by primogeniture, while the inheritances of daughters and younger sons were in cash or stocks, and relatively small. Typically the gentry farmed some of their land through employed managers, but leased most of it to tenant farmers. They also exploited timber and minerals (such as coal), and owned mills and other sources of income. Many heads of families also had careers in politics or the military, and the younger sons of the gentry provided a high proportion of the clergy, military officers, and lawyers. Successful burghers often used their accumulated wealth to buy country estates, with the aim of establishing themselves as landed gentry.
The decline of the gentry largely began with the 1870s agricultural depression; however, there are still many hereditary gentry in the UK. The book series Burke's Landed Gentry records the names of members of this class.
The designation landed gentry originally referred exclusively to members of the upper class who were both landlords and commoners (in the British sense)—that is, they did not hold peerages. But by the late 19th century, the term was also applied to peers, such as the Duke of Westminster, who lived on landed estates.
A peer of the realm is a member of the highest aristocratic social order outside the ruling dynasty of the kingdom.
Notable examples are:
- a member of the peerages in the United Kingdom, who is a hereditary peer or a life peer
- a member of the Peerage of France (from French noble style "pair" in monarchies), of a similar order, as used in
- the Kingdom of France
- the Kingdom of Jerusalem (crusader state)
- the Monarchy of Canada: Canadian nobility in the Peerage of France
- nobility proper of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth who enjoyed hereditary paritas: those who would sit by hereditary right in Land Parliaments, or be Royal Electors, enjoy personal immunity, and the right to be judged only by the King's Court or the Court of Peers; also the exclusive right to be granted State or Land dignities and titles. The Skartabelli who were middle-nobility in law were not peers, whilst noblemen who were not direct barons of the Crown but held land from other Lords were not peers de facto as they would not enjoy full noble privileges.
- a member of the Portuguese Chamber of Most Worthy Peers, upper house of the Cortes Gerais, during the constitutional monarchy of the Kingdom of Portugal.
The hereditary peers form part of the peerage in the United Kingdom. As of April 2025, there are 800 hereditary peers: 30 dukes (including six royal dukes), 34 marquesses, 189 earls, 108 viscounts, and 439 barons (not counting subsidiary titles).
As a result of the Peerage Act 1963, all peers except those in the peerage of Ireland were entitled to sit in the House of Lords. Since the House of Lords Act 1999 came into force only 92 hereditary peers, elected from all hereditary peers, are permitted to do so, unless they are also life peers. Peers are called to the House of Lords with a writ of summons.
Not all hereditary titles are titles of the peerage. For instance, baronets and baronetesses may pass on their titles, but they are not peers. Conversely, the holder of a non-hereditary title may belong to the peerage, as with life peers. Peerages may be created by means of letters patent, but the granting of new hereditary peerages has largely dwindled; only seven hereditary peerages have been created since 1965, four of them for members of the British royal family. The most recent grant of a hereditary peerage was in 2019 for the youngest child of Elizabeth II, Prince Edward, who was created Earl of Forfar; the most recent grant of a hereditary peerage to a non-royal was in 1984 for former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, who was created Earl of Stockton with the subsidiary title of Viscount Macmillan.
A Peerage is a form of crown distinction, with Peerages in the United Kingdom comprising both hereditary and lifetime titled appointments of various ranks, which form both a constituent part of the legislative process and the British honours system within the framework of the Constitution of the United Kingdom.
The peerage forms the highest rung of what is termed the "British nobility". 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. "Lord" is used as a generic term to denote members of the peerage, however individuals who use the appellation Lord or Lady are not always necessarily peers (for example some judicial, ecclesiastic and others are often accorded the appellation "Lord" or "Lady" as a form of courtesy title as a product of their office).
The British monarch is considered the fount of honour and is notionally the only person who can grant peerages, though there are many conventions about how this power is used, especially at the request of the British government.
The peerage's fundamental roles are ones of law making and governance, with peers being eligible (although formerly entitled) to a seat in the House of Lords and having eligibility to serve in a ministerial role in the government if invited to do so by the monarch, or more conventionally in the modern era, by the prime minister.
Until the creation of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom in 2009, the peerage also formed a constituent part of the British judicial system, via the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords.
The peerage also has a ceremonial aspect, and serves a role as a system of honour or award, with the granting of a peerage title forming the highest rung of the modern British honours system.
Within the United Kingdom, due to the hereditary nature of most peerage titles historically, five peerage divisions currently co-exist, namely:
- The Peerage of England – titles created by the kings and queens of England before the Acts of Union in 1707.
- The Peerage of Scotland – titles created by the kings and queens of Scotland before 1707.
- The Peerage of Great Britain – titles created for the Kingdom of Great Britain between 1707 and 1801.
- The Peerage of Ireland – titles created for the Kingdom of Ireland before the Acts of Union in 1801, and some titles created later.
- The Peerage of the United Kingdom – most titles created since 1801 to the present.
Aristocracy (from Ancient Greek ἀριστοκρατίᾱ (aristokratíā) 'rule of the best'; from ἄριστος (áristos) 'best' and κράτος (krátos) 'power, strength') is a form of government that places power in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class, the aristocrats.
Across Europe, the aristocracy exercised immense economic, political, and social influence. In Western Christian countries, the aristocracy was mostly equal with magnates, also known as the titled or higher nobility, however the members of the more numerous social class, the untitled lower nobility (petty nobility or gentry) were not part of the aristocracy.
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