Anonymouswizard's Astoundingly Assonant Random Banter #240

[Metastachydium]

What's the name of the story by the way?

The Monkey's Paw by W. W. Jacobs. It's public domain.

Topic Change.

My mom's been doing ancestry research, a family tree and history for us, for a long time.

Apparently, we've got a lot of English nobility in our tree, for as much as that's worth...

But the oldest of her own ancestors she can find is referred to as both a Baron and an Earl and I'm not sure why that is... Even if the person held both titles they're not equivalent to each other so wouldn't the higher-ranking title supersede the other?

Not neccessarily. You know how it is with rulers, for instance. Damn twits can be kings somewher, grand princes somewhere else and also the dukes of a couple other places.

[Bartmanhomer]

The Monkey's Paw by W. W. Jacobs. It's public domain.

Thank you.

[tyckspoon]

But the oldest of her own ancestors she can find is referred to as both a Baron and an Earl and I'm not sure why that is... Even if the person held both titles they're not equivalent to each other so wouldn't the higher-ranking title supersede the other?

Very very context and time dependent - different records of the individual might have cause to refer to them in different manners (for a brief example if you were just trying to quickly establish a social hierarchy you'd probably only give everybody their highest recognized title, while if you were formally introducing them instead it might be seen as a grave insult to not offer all of their titles and honors) ... or depending on just when the individual in question lived the terms 'baron' and 'earl' may simply mean relevantly distinct things. Modern depictions often like to think the various tiers of nobility just kind of translates to 'noble who rules over x acres of land, 2x acres, 3x..', but they didn't start off that way, and an individual could very well have different rights, privileges, and responsibilities as a Baron than they would as an Earl, such that it would be very important for a contemporary person to know whether the ancestor was one or the other or both.

[Anonymouswizard]

Apparently, we've got a lot of English nobility in our tree, for as much as that's worth...

If there's no familial coat of arms I'd be highly doubtful of such claims. If there is I'd be highly doubtful of any above what the coat of arms represents.

As for what it's worth? Most likely as much as my commoner blood.

But the oldest of her own ancestors she can find is referred to as both a Baron and an Earl and I'm not sure why that is... Even if the person held both titles they're not equivalent to each other so wouldn't the higher-ranking title supersede the other?

In complicated, in Scotland all Earls were Barons, it's just a higher form of the title, whereas in England this would indicate their family holding including both a barony and a county* (which I suspect were split between multiple heirs). While Earldom would generally be the higher, and thus more respectful, title, there would also have been matters where the title of Baron would have had more relevance or power. Especially if the county and barony happen to be geographically distinct.

* Why not an Earldom? Because Count sounds like ****, imagine how easy mockery would be.

[Rater202]

If there's no familial coat of arms I'd be highly doubtful of such claims. If there is I'd be highly doubtful of any above what the coat of arms represents.

As for what it's worth? Most likely as much as my commoner blood.

Yeah, about what I figured. It's basically just a bit of mild trivia.

Not even sure I want to make the effort to double-check any coats of arms.

[Fyraltari]

But the oldest of her own ancestors she can find is referred to as both a Baron and an Earl and I'm not sure why that is... Even if the person held both titles they're not equivalent to each other so wouldn't the higher-ranking title supersede the other?

In addition to what's been said, it's also entirely possible he inherited one title a significant amount of time after the other. For exapmple, maybe his father was baron and his uncle earl, his father dies when he's twenty, making him baron, but his uncle only dies (childless), fourteen years later, making him earl. And that's assuming he didn't get any of the titles through marriage, royal favour or violence.

If there's no familial coat of arms I'd be highly doubtful of such claims. If there is I'd be highly doubtful of any above what the coat of arms represents.

Why? I don't know how far Rater's genealogy is recorded, but it's well established that most people in Europe descend from Charlemagne. Rater having " alot of English nobility" in there, is hardly surprising. Or significant.

Also, the notion that commoner blood is just as significant ans noble one is slightly funny coming from someone from a monarchy that has a Parliament with a House of Lords.

[Anonymouswizard]

Why? I don't know how far Rater's genealogy is recorded, but it's well established that most people in Europe descend from Charlemagne. Rater having " alot of English nobility" in there, is hardly surprising. Or significant.

Coats of arms aren't that uncommon. Although admittedly a lot of what it actually determines is legitimacy.

Also, the notion that commoner blood is just as significant ans noble one is slightly funny coming from someone from a monarchy that has a Parliament with a House of Lords.

Most hereditary titles don't entitle you to a seat in the House*, and having noble ancestors doesn't inherently entitle you to a title (you have to be the lawful holder). If Rater is a legitimate heir to a house he's unlikely to be close enough to have any realistic chance of inheriting a title, before we get into other reasons why he couldn't. But this is straying very close to banned topics.

The majority of UK nobility don't live significantly different lives to UK commoners. As I remember a good number only have the title and it's mostly not relevant rights. Those who do have holdings mostly leave them in the care of institutions in return for income.

* Specific titles do, but not all of them.

[TaiLiu]

I suspect you dislike this because all of your fantasies are some form of wishing your problems away.

I can't tell if this is a mean bit of psychoanalysis or just a neutral statement.

Settling in well at my new job. Actually doing work! Haven't had much free time during it, so I haven' been able to write much though. Rest assured I'll continue though, just putting that update out there.

Glad to hear about your new job.

[Rater202]

Coats of arms aren't that uncommon. Although admittedly a lot of what it actually determines is legitimacy.



Most hereditary titles don't entitle you to a seat in the House*, and having noble ancestors doesn't inherently entitle you to a title (you have to be the lawful holder). If Rater is a legitimate heir to a house he's unlikely to be close enough to have any realistic chance of inheriting a title, before we get into other reasons why he couldn't. But this is straying very close to banned topics.

The majority of UK nobility don't live significantly different lives to UK commoners. As I remember a good number only have the title and it's mostly not relevant rights. Those who do have holdings mostly leave them in the care of institutions in return for income.

* Specific titles do, but not all of them.

Regardless of any other factors... I'm an America who has no intention of leaving the country.

Even if I have a legitimate claim to a hereditary title and no one else has a stronger claim than I do and there's nothing best discussed elsewhere that would stop me from claiming it, a noble title would be of no value to me.

Unless there's a magic sword hidden in a secret vault somewhere that can only be wielded by a direct blood descendant of Baron so and So, Count of Whereeveerthehell being descended from a specific noble is just... Mildly interesting trivia.

***

And now I'm thinking of one of my own fanfics. One of my characters claims to be a descendant of Conan of Cimmeria... Just like literally everyone else on the planet.

[Anonymouswizard]

Nah, Whereeverthehell has a magic hammer. Even then it's only really useful for spaying dragons.

[Peelee]

The majority of UK nobility don't live significantly different lives to UK commoners.

Imean, considering Nigel Tufnel is a 5th Baron, I don't doubt that at all.

I can't tell if this is a mean bit of psychoanalysis or just a neutral statement.

It was intended as the latter.

[2D8HP]

Coats of arms aren't that uncommon. Although admittedly a lot of what it actually determines is legitimacy.



Most hereditary titles don't entitle you to a seat in the House*, and having noble ancestors doesn't inherently entitle you to a title (you have to be the lawful holder). If Rater is a legitimate heir to a house he's unlikely to be close enough to have any realistic chance of inheriting a title[…]

With enough ambition and working for it he totally has a chance of inheriting the title!

[Rater202]

With enough ambition and working for it he totally has a chance of inheriting the title!

If I was going to murder the doubtlessly hundreds of people who have a better claim to various titles than I do, It would be in a ritualized manner meant to consume their life force and ascend to a higher state of being where I'm not trapped in this putrid flesh-prison.

Since that's physically impossible, I'm sad to say that there shall be no homicides by my hand on this or any other day.

[2D8HP]

[…]I'm sad to say that there shall be no homicides by my hand on this or any other day.

Well you’ll have to find another way to call yourself Lord Rater202 with that attitude!

[enderlord99]

Well you’ll have to find another way to call yourself Lord Rater202 with that attitude!

I'm pretty sure if Rater wanted that word in his username, he'd have included it to begin with.

[Bartmanhomer]

This year is almost over and very quickly. I feel like 2022 was a better year despite real-world issues.

[Form]

There's this whisky you can buy and you can buy (lease?) a small plot of land (1 sq foot) somewhere in Scotland along with it so you can call yourself a Lord. I'm not entirely sure how legit that is (i.e. are you really legally a 'Lord' then or is it still just pretend), but that's the one thing that comes to mind if you want a quick & easy way of becoming a Lord. Other than just being born into nobility, that is.

[Rater202]

There's this whisky you can buy and you can buy (lease?) a small plot of land (1 sq foot) somewhere in Scotland along with it so you can call yourself a Lord. I'm not entirely sure how legit that is (i.e. are you really legally a 'Lord' then or is it still just pretend), but that's the one thing that comes to mind if you want a quick & easy way of becoming a Lord. Other than just being born into nobility, that is.

It's a complete scam. You're not actually buying land and even if you were, simply owning land in Scotland, let alone only a single square foot, isn't enough to become a Laird.

The company, while it owns land in Scotland, said land is already protected and the charities they claim to donate to... Exist, but there's no evidence that they're actually donating.

The company is actually run out of Hong Kong and it's part of a conglomerate of other shady businesses.

[Peelee]

It's a complete scam. You're not actually buying land and even if you were, simply owning land in Scotland, let alone only a single square foot, isn't enough to become a Laird.

The company, while it owns land in Scotland, said land is already protected and the charities they claim to donate to... Exist, but there's no evidence that they're actually donating.

The company is actually run out of Hong Kong and it's part of a conglomerate of other shady businesses.

Yep.

I much prefer the baronage of the Principality of Sealand, which is granted under the authority of Prince Regent Michael himself.

[Anonymouswizard]

Bah, you can legally change your name to Lord/Lady Whatever for free. Why bother going through the hassle of paying?

[Rater202]

Grey Jedi in official Star Wars material: A force user who is not a Sith and not a Jedi. May or may not use the dark side, but if they do they also use the light side and have powers, techniques, or rituals to protect from the corrupting influence of dark side use. Can also refer to a Jedi who doesn't fully abide by the traditions of the Order, someone trained by the Jedi who is no longer affiliated with the Order without having fallen to the Dark Side, or a force user who uses both sides of the force in general.

Grey Jedi in most star wars fanfics: Basically a Sith in all but name that the author of the fanfic is pretending is a good guy, gets really self-righteous and sanctimonious about the faults of the Jedi but tends to go beyond their canon flaws into drastically exaggerated caricatures or just flat out things the author of the fic made up.

[LaZodiac]

I am absolutely shocked that the Star Wars fandom has reading comprehension problems. Shocked. Flabberghasted. Agogg with surprise, one might say.

[TaiLiu]

It was intended as the latter.

Oh, okay.

[Bartmanhomer]

I got a cold. Only a running nose. It's that time of the season again.

[Rater202]

That feel where you want to go on a series of magical adventures that rely mainly on problem-solving with minimal combat, each of which helps you learn some philosophical lesson that helps you get your **** together, emotionally speaking, and concludes with being imbued with some small drop of appropriate supernatural power that provides just enough of an all-around physical boost that you have the strength and the energy to follow through with the journey of self-improvement that the adventures get you started on, rinse and repeat until you've fully actualized as the best possible version of the you you want to be with a body that's strong and healthy enough to be maintained a peak efficiency with a reasonable amount of effort.

[Bartmanhomer]

That feel where you want to go on a series of magical adventures that rely mainly on problem-solving with minimal combat, each of which helps you learn some philosophical lesson that helps you get your **** together, emotionally speaking, and concludes with being imbued with some small drop of appropriate supernatural power that provides just enough of an all-around physical boost that you have the strength and the energy to follow through with the journey of self-improvement that the adventures get you started on, rinse and repeat until you've fully actualized as the best possible version of the you you want to be with a body that's strong and healthy enough to be maintained a peak efficiency with a reasonable amount of effort.

That sounds like the cartoon version of D&D.

[Rater202]

That sounds like the cartoon version of D&D.

The cartoon version of D&D was an omnipotent Gnome jerking around some teenagers who ended up going to another realm after being apparently the only people to ever get on a cursed carnival ride, each time promising that their current quest would end them home but lying every time until the show got canceled.

According to the aired final episode, scripts of which can be found online, the whole thing was his plan to redeem the big bad, who as it turns out is his son, and then the kids just decide never to go home.

Or you can go with that car commercial from a little while ago, where he randomly gives them a car and they literally drive home.

[Bartmanhomer]

The cartoon version of D&D was an omnipotent Gnome jerking around some teenagers who ended up going to another realm after being apparently the only people to ever get on a cursed carnival ride, each time promising that their current quest would end them home but lying every time until the show got canceled.

According to the aired final episode, scripts of which can be found online, the whole thing was his plan to redeem the big bad, who as it turns out is his son, and then the kids just decide never to go home.

Or you can go with that car commercial from a little while ago, where he randomly gives them a car and they literally drive home.

Right.

So anyway my cold went away. I forgot to mention that I weigh 190 lbs now. I use to weigh 245 lbs a few years ago but I lost 55 lbs.

[Aedilred]

Topic Change.

My mom's been doing ancestry research, a family tree and history for us, for a long time.

Apparently, we've got a lot of English nobility in our tree, for as much as that's worth...

But the oldest of her own ancestors she can find is referred to as both a Baron and an Earl and I'm not sure why that is... Even if the person held both titles they're not equivalent to each other so wouldn't the higher-ranking title supersede the other?

There are a couple of things going on here. Often, because of intermarriage between nobles, you'll get a noble who ends up with different titles from different creations. So the Duke of Norfolk might also inherit the title of Earl of Arundel (as indeed he did). As separate titles, these are listed separately, and to the extent they come with perks or land attached, they may be exercised differently depending on what "hat" they're wearing. They may have different rules of inheritance, depending on the creation (for instance, some are limited to heirs male, some allow inheritance by daughters, and some, exceptionally, allow inheritance from nephews or nieces of the original holder), so the titles are in theory separable, even if in practice they almost never are.

If you're an earl already and you're then made a duke, what usually happens is that your title is upgraded, so you might already be 3rd Earl of Rutland and then you'll be the 1st Duke of Rutland. In this case the earldom is subsumed into the dukedom and isn't listed separately. (N.B. the number indicates how many previous title-holders there have been, so titles with higher numbers are usually older and therefore more prestigious within that rank of nobility).

However, with the "lower" titles (Baron and Viscount) what usually happens is that these are created along with the first earldom (or marquessate, or dukedom) and are used as a courtesy title by the heir to the main title. For instance, the Viscount Cranbourne (a frequently influential figure in British politics) doesn't hold a title in his own right, but only as heir apparent to the Marquess of Salisbury. I think all earls (and higher) are also either barons or viscounts, but I'm not sure.

Note that the connexion of the title with a specific place is often a red herring. The "feudal system" in England was always a bit of a fudge, as the Normans - used to the more obviously "feudal" system in France - grafted on their familiar rules of nobility to what was for the time a sophisticated administrative and governmental system reliant on non-hereditary regional administrators much of which they left intact. (This included the "downgrading" of the title of earl from something akin to a continental duke, covering a pre-unification kingdom, to a count-equivalent, associated with just one shire). Even early on, being made, say, earl of Oxford, didn't mean you were the owner or governor of Oxfordshire. Usually you would have an estate in the county, but with time even that fell away to the point where a noble might not even own property in the territory they're nominally lord of. Many (perhaps most?) earldoms now aren't even nominally associated with a county including the oldest surviving one (Arundel). This applies to dukedoms too: the Duchy of Cornwall, which unusually these days does still come with significant land attached, does not correspond territorially with the county of Cornwall, and most of it is in Devon.

With coats of arms, there is, strictly speaking at least, no such thing as a "family coat of arms". Rather, coats of arms are owned by individuals and are inherited by their heirs. If you're a family member, you may still use the coat of arms but with a defacement or difference to signify your relationship to the holder. Employees of the holder (like footmen) may also wear livery of the holder, though this is pretty rare these days.

That's in England. Scotland is different, or at least it's different for titles going back before 1707.

There's this whisky you can buy and you can buy (lease?) a small plot of land (1 sq foot) somewhere in Scotland along with it so you can call yourself a Lord. I'm not entirely sure how legit that is (i.e. are you really legally a 'Lord' then or is it still just pretend), but that's the one thing that comes to mind if you want a quick & easy way of becoming a Lord. Other than just being born into nobility, that is.

There's a whisky thing, which Laphroiag (and possibly other distillers) used to do (and maybe still do?) where when you register a purchase of a bottle you get a square foot of land in Scotland for your lifetime. This is just a bit of fun, to encourage you to register your purchases and to visit the distillery one day (where you can buy merch) and doesn't pretend to be anything else.

There are also companies that sell you an equivalent plot and tell you that you are now a lord. This is, as above, basically a scam.

Most companies that purport to tell you your "family coat of arms" are also essentially a scam, especially since, as above, there's no such thing. For common family names, there have often been grants of many coats of arms to individuals of that name over the years; the company will just pick one of these and tell you it's yours irrespective of whether you have any relation to that person, whether that coat of arms still exists, etc.

The College of Arms will actually do the job properly, and, if they turn up a blank, you can apply to them for a fresh grant, if you really want one. The bar for grant of a coat of arms is these days pretty low: having a university degree is sufficient, for instance.

[Form]

The College of Arms will actually do the job properly, and, if they turn up a blank, you can apply to them for a fresh grant, if you really want one. The bar for grant of a coat of arms is these days pretty low: having a university degree is sufficient, for instance.

Sweet! Finally I can establish the noble lineage of the House of Form!