(3): Baronia comitis integra.

Where a modern eye expects to find “earldom,” the text reads “earl’s barony.” But “earldom” originally meant an office, the chief magistracy of a county, not a title of dignity nor the ownership of land: whereas “relief” was due for the land, not the office. Therein lies also the explanation why the earl originally paid no more for his barony than the baron paid for his.

The position of an earl under the Norman Kings had been something far different from a modern “earldom”: it did not pass, as matter of course, from father to son without the King’s confirmation; it did not carry with it any right to demand entry to the King’s Council; it was not one of several “steps in the peerage,” a conception that did not then exist.

The policy of the Conqueror had been to bring each county as far as possible under his own direct authority; many districts had no earls, while in others the connection of an earl with his titular shire was reduced to a shadow, the only points of connection being the right to enjoy “the third penny” (that is, the third part pro indiviso of the profits of the county court) and the right to bear its name. It is true that, in addition, the earl usually held valuable estates in the shire, but he did this only as any other land–owner might. For purposes of taxation the whole of his lands were reckoned as one unit, here described as baronia comitis integra, the relief on which was taxed at £100.

Very gradually, in after ages, the conception of an earldom suffered change. The official character made way for the idea of tenure, and later on for the modern conception of a hereditary dignity conferring rank and privileges. The period of transition, when the tenurial idea prevailed, is illustrated by the successful attempt of Ranulf, earl of Chester and Lincoln, in the reign of Henry III. to dispose of one of his two earldoms—described by him as the comitatus of Lincoln. Earls are now, like barons, created by letters patent, and need not be land–owners. Thus the words “barony” and “earldom,” so diverse in their origin and early development, became closely united in their later history.