English Nobility Categorisation Policy

Question

Hello all,

Continuing on from my previous post, I think that we should make an effort to consistently categorise where we can. For those of you who have not seen the post or do not wish to, I was asking whether we have guidelines for inclusion in English Noble family categories, as I noticed that some included people who married into the family and some didn't.

My personal preference is that the categories include only those born into the surname. This means that daughters of the family will still be included, but not the children if they (hopefully) marry outside of the family because they will have a different surname. This allows for closer categorisation; even though the daughters children will be descendants of the family, they are legally born with a surname belonging to another family, and often in the cases of the English nobility noble families intermarried between them. However, the inclusion of the mother (the daughter of this family) still provides a link between families.

Similarly, I also believe that wives should also not be included. I say this because if the children are included, it is providing an obvious link to the wife and it is not saying that the wife is not considered part of the family, but as I said in my last thought regarding children of daughters, they are born into a different family and they likely (though obviously not always) belong to another noble family themselves.

Of course, it isn't up to me, but I'd like for the Euroaristo project to discuss finalising a gentle guideline for inclusion in these categories to maintain a streamlined categorisation system. These are just my personal thoughts and ideas.

Amy

Answer 1

My preference would be to exclude wives and include daughters. I would not include the children of the daughters either.

Comments

I'm glad we agree!

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And to be clear, what about in generations when the wife is the heiress? Just include her, or also the husband?

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I admit that I'm slightly confused by the wording of your question.
In the case that the wife is the daughter, and she is heiress, she would be included in her family category and her husband would not, because he is not a blood descendant of the family line.

Say, for example, that you have John Smith and Jane Brown. If one of their daughters is a heiress, she will be in the Smith family category and her husband will not be. If Jane herself was an heir as well as John, Jane would be in the Brown family category.

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With some of the books on titles and tenancies they only mention one person per generation, for example Sanders "English Baronies". I can't see a big problem with that myself.

But in England to some extent the husbands of heiresses were treated as if they had the title and the lands already during their lifetime (but ending with their lifetime, not transferring to any heirs they might have with other wives), and some books act this way too.

One legal aspect of this difference between men and women was what they call the "Courtesy of England".

There is of course no particular logical reason we have to follow this.

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There are many examples where the husband of the heiress, either took on his wife's surname (this happened a lot in Scotland) or appended her surname to his.

In that case I would definitely include the husband in both his own and his wife's category.

If the husband has changed his name, then legally any children and descendants would be now in using the wife's surname and category.

It can get even more complicated than that but ...

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If we presume that it is best to have a simple rule, then I would suggest saying always have one per generation (the person passing the title on so to speak) or always have the couples? I see no problem with either rule. I suppose we try to develop something in between it will not really work effectively. Wikitree is not good for complex decisions.

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In England, the husband of heiresses did own the land because a married couple became one person, and the property of the wife was surrendered to her husband and her legal identity ended.

I would recommend avoiding the house categories for Scottish nobility - it is a similar concept as clans, which are better documented. Also, in Scotland women retained their ownership of property when they married and didn't change their surname or their clan.

Name changes usually has something to do with the entail of property, which is why husbands change their names in Scotland earlier than in England.

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Then you get the cases where the heiress marries twice and the 2nd husband hangs on to the property for life before it descends to the heirs of the 1st marriage, etc.  Courtesy of England was often pushed further than it was legally supposed to go.

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Kirk the wife's legal identity can not have ended, because as RJ pointed out, after husbands died, wives often remarried and then had heirs from them.

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An unmarried heiress or widow is a feme sole - but when she's married she's feme covert and her husband is her lord and her property is under his protection.

Andrew is talking about the situation where she becomes a feme sole again, and her property would flow into the 2nd marriage not to the heir of the 1st.

RJ is talking about the more chaotic situation where the 1st husband's heir takes her property, and she (or her heirs) has to do something to get it back. Legal case, petition to the King or Parliament, her 2nd husband taking it by force etc.  Parliament changed the law in 1882(!) so women could legally own property separately from their husbands.

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Looking at the other comments here, I think the majority of us at least agree that spouses should be included in both their house at birth and the house they marry into. Children born into a house are included in birth category, and their spouse is only included if they are the heir of the family?

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probably simplest yes. I think the conversation above shows the problem of trying to be too exact

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With heiresses, sometimes the husband is entitled - in some cases, the husband even takes his wife's family name, or a hyphenate... So those are things to watch.

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Like I said, spouses will be included into their birth house and marriage house if the person they are marrying is the heir(ess).

Answer 2

I'd also leave out the bastards.

Answer 3

I look at it this way: if John Haywood marries Jane Page when she is 17, and she dies aged 70, she has spent longer as Jane Haywood rather than Jane Page.  Does that not count for anything?

Comments

This is a bit off-topic, but with French noble houses I would include married women both in their father's house and her husband's.

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Thanks Isabelle, I would also do this for British noble houses.  Particularly where a woman marries someone with a title, they almost always take on a variation of that title.

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That also makes sense, and looking back at the conversation I think that that would be the best course of action. In regards to what Andrew mentioned, with female heiresses, I assume that if we are including spouses then we would include the husbands of heiresses also.

Answer 4

When we're talking about pre-Modern England and some limits on these categories, I'm thinking "house" is best used before 1485 (aka Bosworth) - Henry VII had good reason to mistrust several of these noble families, used KB and KG as honours in lieu of new peerage titles, and used various other means to ensure loyalty to the crown. At the same time, English society became much more mobile, one reason was Henry VII appointed people based on ability not just their family connections or status because he mistrusted nobles and thought they would use any power to overthrow him. At this point the house starts to lose it's usefulness as a category since these men of ability had heiresses or daughters with hefty dowries but no title, or sons without any title marrying the daughters of noble families but not having any loyalty to the "house".  

 I suspect a social historian/sociologist might have written a article or book about you could possibly cite in the parent category.

Comments

Not sure about that. House is I think more of a modern word, and not intended to describe what we are talking about here but rather something which went beyond the legal inheritances? Also even in modern terms I do not think it is the word historians tend to use?

I guess it is mostly a word used in literature. Indeed I think it comes from Shakespere's terminology in his War of the Roses works?

Answer 5

I think you have to follow the inheritance; It's frequently spelled out, and though predominantly patrilineal, quite often matrilineal. Unless I am missing the point. Succession rules vary. Simple inheritance of property, without a peerage title is dependent upon whim, choice, and "tradition."