perhaps to the male descendants, the other
to the heirs general; whereby the earldom or other superior title hath
subsisted without a barony: and there are also modern instances where
earls and viscounts have been created without annexing a barony to
their other honours: so that now the rule does not hold universally,
that all peers are barons. The original and antiquity of baronies has
occasioned great enquiries among our English antiquarians. The most
probable opinion seems to be, that they were the same with our present
lords of manors; to which the name of court baron, (which is the
lord's court, and incident to every manor) gives some countenance. It
may be collected from king John's _magna carta_[l], that originally
all lords of manors, or barons, that held of the king _in capite_, had
seats in the great council or parliament, till about the reign of that
prince the conflux of them became so large and troublesome, that the
king was obliged to divide them, and summon only the greater barons in
person; leaving the small ones to be summoned by the sheriff, and (as
it is said) to sit by representation in another house; which gave rise
to the separation of the two houses of parliament[m]. By degrees the
title came to be confined to the greater barons, or lords of
parliament only; and there were no other barons among the peerage but
such as were summoned by writ, in respect of the tenure of their lands
or baronies, till Richard the second first made it a mere title of
honor, by conferring it on divers persons by his letters patent[n].

[Footnote k: 2 Inst. 5, 6.]

[Footnote l: _cap._ 14.]

[Footnote m: Gilb. hist. exch. c. 3. Seld. tit. of hon. 2. 5. 21.]

[Footnote n: 1 Inst. 9. Seld. _Jan. Angl._ 2. Sec. 66.]

HAVING made this short enquiry into the original of our several
degrees of nobility, I shall next consider the manner in which they
may be created. The right of peerage seems to have been originally
territorial; that is, annexed to lands, honors, castles, manors, and
the like, the proprietors and possessors of which were (in right of
those estates) allowed to be peers of the realm, and were summoned to
parliament to do suit and service to their sovereign: and, when the
land was alienated, the dignity passed with it as appendant. Thus the
bishops still sit in the house of lords in right of succession to
certain antient baronies annexed, or supposed to be annexed, to their
episcopal lands[o]: and thus, in 11