Honour (England)

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.^{[citation needed]}

For other uses, see Honor (disambiguation).

Composition

It could consist of a great lordship, with a significant castle as its caput baroniae, and more than about 20 knight's fees^{[citation needed]} (each loosely equivalent to a manor)^[2] 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] 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, hosted the court of the honour^[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.

Courts

The honour court, also known as the curia ducis ("duke's court") or curia militum ("soldiers' court"), was made up of the most important of a lord's tenants, particularly those who owed him knight service. Unlike other types of manorial court its jurisdiction was not limited to a specific manor, but could extend over all the manors in the honour.^[4] Dealing as it did with the most important of the lord's tenants it was initially the principal manorial court, and may have acted as a superior court of appeal for the lower manorial courts, at least until 1267.^[5]

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.^[6]

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

Traditional mediaeval honours

Traditional mediaeval property-based honours in England included:

• Honour of Chester
• Honour of Clitheroe
• Honour of Clare
• Honour of Eye
• Honour of Framlingham
• Honour of Giffard
• Honour of Gloucester
• Honour of Grafton
• Honour of Holderness
• Honour of Lancaster
• Honour of Mowbray^[7]
• Honour of Peverel
• Honour of Pontefract
• Honour of Richmond
• Honour of Wallingford, circa 1066 to 1540