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devising new forms. It was not until the 17th century that they became fixed, under the influence mainly of the newly 'organized international diplomatic service (see DIPLOMACY) But meanwhile they had developed from the simplicity of the early feudal age into a Byzantine pomposity, the exuberance of which bored even the ceremonious court of Spain into a free use of the pruning knife. Honorary styles are, for the rest, now mere stereotyped formulae; the words that compose them have become-to use Emerson's phrase "polarized" and deprived of meaning. Not otherwise could a German journalist, late in the 19th century, have recorded, without exciting surprise, that" to-day their All-highest majesties went to church to give thanks to the Highest." The same is more or less true of all titles. They are traditional, and are mainly valued for this reason. An imaginative person might devise a dozen styles in themselves better fitted to express the peculiar eminency of a successful money-lender or a wealthy brewer than the feudal title of baron, or than that of knight to indicate the qualities of a Radical apostle of the gospel of “peace at any price." But the instinct in these matters is to put new wine into old bottles; and, on the whole, the bottles bear the strain. The process is, indeed, very old. William Harrison, in his inimitable style, has left a description of it in the 16th century (see GENTLEMAN), and it was older far than his day. In all ages the new nobility has been looked down upon by the old; but the ancient titles have always in the end adapted themselves to their new users. Long before the bourgeois age was dreamed of, dukes as such had ceased to "lead" (ducere), marquesses to guard the "marches," Ritters to "ride," and no one marked the incongruity of their styles. The process is but continued if, for instance, in the 20th century the title of baron often suggests, not the feudal power of the sword, but the international power of the purse.

Titles have therefore in themselves a world of historical significance. In some the significance is obvious, the history comparatively recent. In others the significance is veiled under obscure etymologies, which carry us back to the very beginnings of social life. We find in these words, too, most singular contrasts of fortune. Caesar, a nickname (caesaries) given to some long-haired Roman, grows into a surname which the founder of the empire chanced to bear, and so remains to this day the title of German kaisers and Slavonic tsars, of the king of England as Kaisar-i-Hind and of the sultan of Turkey as Kaisar-i-Rum. The first of the German Caesars bore the name of Karl, which in itself means no more than "man" and in English speech has sunk to the base meaning of "churl" (see CHARLES); for the barbarians beyond the eastern borders of his empire, the Slavs and Magyars who felt the weight of his arm, his name became identified with his office, and remains to this day in the sense of "king" (Mag. Király, Slav. Kral, Russ. Korol). On the other hand, we have the contrary process. The proud title of "count of the stable," once borne by the highest official of the Byzantine court, is now associated in the public mind The papal chancery, however, seems early to have established definite rules. Those sovereigns who had special titles, bestowed or recognized by the pope, such as "Most Catholic King" (Spain) or "Most Christian King (France), were so addressed. The rest were "Illustrious" (illustres). The only title of mere honour would, e.g. in the 12th century, seem to have been dominus (Sire, Lord), which in the Anglo-Norman poem of Guillaume le Mareschal is applied to any one of birth, from the king's son of France down to the humblest noble (see SIR). By the Pragmatico de los titulos y cortesias of the 8th of October 1636 King Philip III. decreed that he was to be addressed in letters only as Señor, while at the end was to appear no more than "God guard the Catholic person of your Majesty." (Selden p. 103.)

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Die Allerhöchsten Herrschaften sind heute in die Kirche gegangen dem Höchsten ihren Dank u.s.w. The sentence is fixed in the writer's memory, but the exact reference is forgotten.

Known traditionally as Charlemagne (Carolus Magnus, Karl the Great), the unique instance of a posthumous title of honour being absorbed into a name. Modern English historians have tended to dissolve this immemorial union in the interest of historic accuracy. But Charles" is only a degree less conventional than Charlemagne.

A parallel case, but more obscure, of a proper name developing into a title is that of the curious title of "Dauphin," ultimately borne only by the heir-apparent to the French throne (see DAUPHIN).

"

mainly with humble police officials, in the United States with the humblest of all, the village constable only (see CONSTABLE). Less impressive perhaps is the fate of the title valet," which, once that of a gentleman, has sunk to be that of a "gentleman's gentleman (see VALET). The same word, too, develops differently in different languages. The German Knecht remains a servant; in England the cniht has developed into the knight, just as the serviens (servant) survives in the very various modern uses of the title serjeant (qv.). In one exalted case at least we even have a title based on a mistaken etymological deduction. The title "Augustus," 1.e. sublime or sacred, used originally of persons or places consecrated by the auguries, is derived ultimately, in a passive sense, from augere, to increase. This led to the rendering of the Latin title "semper Augustus," borne by the Holy Roman emperors until 1806, in German as "at all times augmenter of the empire" (zu allen Zeiten Mehrer des Reichs), a style as ill-grounded in etymology as it was lamentably untrue in fact.

The fortunes of individual titles are outlined in the separate articles devoted to them. Here it only remains to discuss them generally from the point of view of their classification according to origin and general character. Of the styles that are mere attributes-like serene, honourable, reverend-enough has been said; they are but stereotyped courtesies. Most titles proper, on the other hand, have in their origins a deeper significance. The title king, for instance, recalls a remote time when it was borne by right of kinship, as head of a tribe (see KING). Other titles recall that forgotten stage of society in which it was the rule for age to command and youth to obey: such as the French seigneur, sieur, sire, monsieur, monseigneur; the Italian signor, monsignore; the Spanish señor, and the English "sir," all derived from senior, “older” (see MONSIEUR and SIR), itself a Latin translation of a type of title which in the Teutonic languages appears to survive only in the English alderman (q.v.). Seigneur, sire and the rest developed, of course, into the equivalents, not of senior, but of dominus (lord). But the idea of the title originally must have been the same as that of "elder," like the Arab sheikh (q.v.) or the starostas and starshinas of the Russian village communities; the seniores, in early feudal times, were the full grown fighting men as opposed to the pueri (boys), the unfledged squires and valets. Other titles are derived from the idea of command or rule: such are those of emperor (q.v.); the Latin rex (regere, to rule, guide)—whence the French roi, Italian rè and the English attributive style "royal "—and from the same common Indo- European root the Indian titles of raja and maharaja; the title of duke (q.v.); the Latin dominus, domina (originally, a master or mistress in the house, domus), whence the modern dame, madame, mademoiselle, don and dom; the German Herr (cf. herrschen, to rule); or, to take an Oriental instance, that of sultan (Arabic salat, to rule). Some titles again are derived from mere ideas of precedence, like that of "prince" (q.v.), which may be described as the generic sovereign title; the Spanish title of "grandce" (q.v.); or that of "master" (q.v.), which as a title of honour survives in Scotland. Very rare are the titles of honour that have their origin in the idea of gentle birth, which indeed, in earlier times, was predicated of all wearers of titles in Europe. The only modern equivalent of the Anglo-Saxon atheling (q.v.) in Europe would appear to be the Austrian title of Edler, which means, strictly speaking, no more than "noble," though it implies a rank higher than that of the untitled Adeliger. The English title “eatl” (q.v.) has a similar equivalent of "count." origin, but passed through the stage of an official style as the The word "gentleman" (q.v.) is not a title, any more than the French gentilhomme; it is, in so far as it is used in any definite sense at all, an attribute, like the German hochwolgeboren or the Russian barin-the equivalent of the Latin generosus, "well-born." In the Mahommedan East its equivalent, in the sense of well-born, is the Arabic title sherif, So Rigord, the monk of St Denis, says in his Gesta of Philip Augustus, king of France, that he was so styled after the Caesars, who bore the name of Augustus because they augmented the empire. Unde iste merito dictus est Augustus ab aucta republica.

now applied only to the descendants of the Prophet. The most characteristic and familiar of English titles, again, that of "lord," carries us back to a very primitive state, when the lord was par excellence the "loaf-warden" (hlaf-ord, hlaf-weard). Here it may be noted that the title "lord" has no foreign European equivalent: the German Herr (though Herrenhaus is strictly House of Lords), the Italian signor, the Spanish señor, the Slavonic pan and the Greek kupios are all equivocal, being used most commonly in the sense of Mr (Master). Even the French do not translate "lord" by monseigneur (though seigneur is strictly speaking its equivalent), and still less by monsieur, though the ancient custom has survived of using the latter colloquially in place of all titles,' but by milord. Lastly there are two important European titles derived from personal relations with the sovereign, though they have long ceased to have any such connotation. Of these the oldest is that of count," which goes back to the comiles (companions) of the early Roman emperors (see COUNT); the second is "baron," originally meaning no more than "man" and so, under the feudal system, the king's men par excellence, the great tenants-in-chief of the crown (see BARON). In England the barons formed and form the body of the peerage, "peer" not being a title of honour, but the description of a status and function bestowed by their creation upon all barons, viscounts, earls, marquesses and dukes (see PEERAGE). In France, on the other hand, "peer" (pair) was under the old monarchy a title of honour; for not even all dukes were peers of France, and the style of such as were, therefore, ran duc et pair.

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From the above it will already have become apparent that titles of honour, as they now survive in Europe, are picturesque relics of the feudal system (see FEUDALISM). In theory they are still territorial, and it is the shadowy suggestion of landed estate that gives, in France and Germany, to the nobiliary particles de and von their mystic virtue. In Great Britain there has been of late years a tendency in the case of some newly made peers to drop the affectation of territorial power. In the case of some titles, e.g. Earl Carrington-this merely follows a very ancient English tradition; even under the feudal system after the Norman Conquest it was not unusual for the great nobles to use their titles with their family names or those of their fiefs indifferently; for instance, the Norman earls of Derby described themselves, as often as not, as Earls Ferrers (see DERBY, EARLS OF). Convention, however, dictates that barons and viscounts should, on creation, adopt a territorial style. In the case of such titles as Lord James of Hereford and Lord Morley of Blackburn, this style is adopted from the place of birth; for which a certain precedent might perhaps be pleaded in the medieval custom exemplified in such names for royal princes as "John of Gaunt" or "Henry of Woodstock." On the other hand, there has been also a somewhat absurd tendency to exaggerate the territorial styles by piling one on the top of the other. It would be invidious to mention actual instances; but the process may be illustrated by the imaginary title of Baron Coneyhurst of Ockley. | From the fact that, as feudalism developed, fiefs became hereditary, it comes that most European titles of honour are hereditary. Knighthood alone formed, in general, an exception to this rule. Yet, in their origin, no one of the titles familiar to us were descendible from father to son, and the only hereditary quality was that of abstract nobility. Yet, by a curious inversion of the whole idea of titles of honour, an inherited title has come to be far more valued than one bestowed; it has the 1E.g. Monsieur de la Rochefoucauld, for M. le duc de la R. In the United Kingdom the parallel custom stops short of dukes. All other peers, from marquesses to barons, are commonly spoken of and addressed by the title of lord.

In Germany a distinction is drawn between those titles derived from estates still held by the head of the family and those that are landless. The latter are simply "of" (von), the former are "of and at 17 (von und zu).

Thus in the Instructions annexed to the commission for the selection of the new order of baronets, King James I. gives these precedence over knights, "because this is a Dignity, which shall be Hereditary, wherein divers circumstances are more considerable, than such a Mark as is but Temporary." (Selden, op. cit. p. 685.)

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peculiarly aristocratic virtue ascribed by Lord Palmerston to the most Noble Order of the Garter: " There is no damned merit about it;" it has the crowning quality that it must needs be the monopoly of the few. Hereditary titles sink in value, indeed, just in proportion as they become common. In the United Kingdom their value has been kept up by the rule of primogeniture: there can be only one bearer of such a title in a single generation. In France custom distributes the various titles of a family among all the sons, the eldest son, for instance, of a duke inheriting his dukedom, the second son his marquisate, the third his countship, and so on. In Germany and Austria titles pass to all the sons in each successive generation, though in Prussia the rule of primogeniture has been introduced in the case of certain new creations (e.g. Fürst, prince). The result is that equivalent titles vary enormously in social significance in different countries. An attempt has been made to estimate the extent of this variation in the case of individual titles in articles devoted to them. Here we need only illustrate the argument by one striking example. The Russian title of "prince" (knyaz) implies undoubted descent from the great reigning houses of Russia, Poland and Lithuania; but the title descends to all male children, none of whom is entitled to represent it par excellence. There may be three or four hundred princes bearing the same distinguished name; of these some may be great nobles, but others are not seldom found in quite humble capacities-waiters or droshky-drivers. The title in itself has little social value.

In the countries east of the marches of the old Empire, i.e. Hungary and the Slav lands, existing titles are partly developed from the native tradition (feudal in Hungary, Bohemia and Poland; autocratic and Oriental in Russia and the lands of the Balkan peninsula), partly borrowed from the West, like that of gróf (count) in Hungary and graf in Russia. Just as in autocratic Russia the sole indigenous title of honour (knyaz) is associated with royal descent, so in the Mahommedan East there are, outside the reigning families, no hereditary titles, except that of sherif, already mentioned. In India the hereditary styles of certain great Mahommedan nobles are exceptions. that prove the rule; they represent reigning families whose raj has been absorbed in the imperial government, and they are still reigning princes in the sense in which the heads of German mediatized houses are so described (see MEDIATIZATION). For the rest, the titles of Oriental princes follow much the same gradation as those of the West. As caliph (q.v.), or vicar of the Prophet, the Ottoman sultan is in Islam the equivalent of the pope in Roman Catholic Christendom; his imperial dignity is signified by the Persian title of padishah (lord king), his function as leader of a militant religion by the style of "commander of the faithful" (see AMIR). Shah is in Persia the equivalent of king; the style of shah-in-shah, king of kings, recalls the days of the Persian great king" familiar in the Old Testament. Khan (prince) and amir (commander, lord) are other Eastern sovereign titles. Pasha and bey, originally exclusively military titles, are now used also as civilian titles of honour, but they are not hereditary. When the pashalik of Egypt was made hereditary the situation was ultimately regularized by bestowing on the pasha the Persian title of khedive (q.v.). In the Far East, Japan has adopted a system of titles, based on her ancient feudal hierarchy, which closely corresponds to that of Europe (see JAPAN). China, on the other hand, stands apart in the curious custom of bestowing titles on the ancestors of persons to be honoured, and in making them hereditary only for a limited number of generations (see CHINA: Social Customs). In Europe such posthumous honours are rendered only in the case of saints (see CANONIZATION).

Of ecclesiastical titles of honour it can only be said that they tend to an even greater exaggeration than those bestowed on secular dignities. The swelling styles of the Eastern patriarchs are relics of the days when Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria and Jerusalem were vying with each other for precedence (see CHURCH HISTORY and PATRIARCH). The style The designation barin (boyarin, boyar) is not, properly speaking, a title, but the equivalent of " gentleman."

devising new forms. It was not until the 17th century that they became fixed, under the influence mainly of the newly organized international diplomatic service (see DIPLOMACY) But meanwhile they had developed from the simplicity of the early feudal age into a Byzantine pomposity, the exuberance of which bored even the ceremonious court of Spain into a free use of the pruning knife. Honorary styles are, for the rest, now mere stereotyped formulae; the words that compose them have become to use Emerson's phrase "polarized" and deprived of meaning. Not otherwise could a German journalist, late in the 19th century, have recorded, without exciting surprise, that "to-day their All-highest majesties went to church to give thanks to the Highest." The same is more or less true of all titles. They are traditional, and are mainly valued for this reason. An imaginative person might devise a dozen styles in themselves better fitted to express the peculiar eminency of a successful money-lender or a wealthy brewer than the feudal title of baron, or than that of knight to indicate the qualities of a Radical apostle of the gospel of "peace at any price." But the instinct in these matters is to put new wine into old bottles; and, on the whole, the bottles bear the strain. The process is, indeed, very old. William Harrison, in his inimitable style, has left a description of it in the 16th century (see GENTLEMAN), and it was older far than his day. In all ages the new nobility has been looked down upon by the old; but the ancient titles have always in the end adapted themselves to their new users. Long before the bourgeois age was dreamed of, dukes as such had ceased to "lead" (ducere), marquesses to guard the "marches," Ritters to "ride," and no one marked the incongruity of their styles. The process is but continued if, for instance, in the 20th century the title of baron often suggests, not the feudal power of the sword, but the international power of the purse.

Titles have therefore in themselves a world of historical significance. In some the significance is obvious, the history comparatively recent. In others the significance is veiled under obscure etymologies, which carry us back to the very beginnings of social life. We find in these words, too, most singular contrasts of fortune. Caesar, a nickname (caesaries) given to some long-haired Roman, grows into a surname which the founder of the empire chanced to bear, and so remains to this day the title of German kaisers and Slavonic tsars, of the king of England as Kaisar-i-Hind and of the sultan of Turkey as Kaisar-i-Rum. The first of the German Caesars bore the name of Karl, which in itself means no more than "man" and in English speech has sunk to the base meaning of "churl" (see CHARLES); for the barbarians beyond the eastern borders of his empire, the Slavs and Magyars who felt the weight of his arm, his name became identified with his office, and remains to this day in the sense of "king (Mag. Király, Slav. Kral, Russ. Korol). On the other hand, we have the contrary process. The proud title of 46 count of the stable," once borne by the highest official of the Byzantine court, is now associated in the public mind The papal chancery, however, seems early to have established definite rules. Those sovereigns who had special titles, bestowed or recognized by the pope, such as " Most Catholic King" (Spain) or "Most Christian King (France), were so addressed. The rest were "Illustrious" (illustres).: The only title of mere honour would, e.g. in the 12th century, seem to have been dominus (Sire, Lord), which in the Anglo-Norman poem of Guillaume le Maréschal is applied to any one of birth, from the king's son of France down to the humblest noble (see SIR). By the Pragmatico de los titulos y cortesias of the 8th of October 1636 King Philip III. decreed that he was to be addressed in letters only as Señor, while at the end was to appear no more than "God guard the Catholic person of your Majesty." (Selden p. 103.)

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Die Allerhöchsten Herrschaften sind heute in die Kirche gegangen dem Höchsten ihren Dank u.s.w. The sentence is fixed in the writer's memory, but the exact reference is forgotten.

Known traditionally as Charlemagne (Carolus Magnus, Karl the Great), the unique instance of a posthumous title of honour being absorbed into a name. Modern English historians have tended to dissolve this immemorial union in the interest of historic accuracy. But Charles" is only a degree less conventional than Charlemagne.

A parallel case, but more obscure, of a proper name developing into a title is that of the curious title of "Dauphin," ultimately borne only by the heir-apparent to the French throne (see DAUPHIN).

mainly with humble police officials, in the United States with the humblest of all, the village constable only (see CONSTABLE). Less impressive perhaps is the fate of the title "valet," which, once that of a gentleman, has sunk to be that of a gentleman's gentleman (see VALET). The same word, too, develops differently in different languages. The German Knecht remains a servant; in England the cniht has developed into the knight, just as the serviens (servant) survives in the very various modern uses of the title serjeant (qv.). In one exalted case at least we even have a title based on a mistaken etymological deduction. The title "Augustus," 1.e. sublime or sacred, used originally of persons or places consecrated by the auguries, is derived ultimately, in a passive sense, from augere, to increase. This led to the rendering of the Latin title " semper Augustus," borne by the Holy Roman emperors until 1806, in German as at all times augmenter of the empire" (zu allen Zeiten Mehrer des Reichs), a style as ill-grounded in etymology as it was lamentably untrue in fact."

"

The fortunes of individual titles are outlined in the separate articles devoted to them. Here it only remains to discuss them generally from the point of view of their classification according to origin and general character. Of the styles that are mere attributes-like serene, honourable, reverend-enough has been said; they are but stereotyped courtesies. Most titles proper, on the other hand, have in their origins a deeper significance. The title king, for instance, recalls a remote time when it was borne by right of kinship, as head of a tribe (see KING). Other titles recall that forgotten stage of society in which it was the rule for age to command and youth to obey: such as the French seigneur, sieur, sire, monsieur, monseigneur; the Italian signor, monsignore; the Spanish señor, and the English "sir," all derived from senior, “older” (see MONSIEUR and SIR), itself a Latin translation of a type of title which in the Teutonic languages appears to survive only in the English alderman (q.v.). Seigneur, sire and the rest developed, of course, into the equivalents, not of senior, but of dominus (lord). But the idea of the title originally must have been the same as that of "elder," like the Arab sheikh (q.v.) or the starostas and starshings of the Russian village communities; the seniores, in early feudal times, were the full grown fighting men as opposed to the pueri (boys), the unfledged squires and valets. Other titles are derived from the idea of command or rule: such are those of emperor (q.v.); the Latin rex (regere, to rule, guide)--whence the French roi, Italian rè and the English attributive style" royal "—and from the same common Indo-European root the Indian titles of raja and makaraja; the title of duke (q.v.); the Latin dominus, domina (originally, a master or mistress in the house, domus), whence the modern dame, madame, mademoiselle, don and dom; the German Herr (cf. herrschen, to rule); or, to take an Oriental instance, that of sultan (Arabic salat, to rule). Some titles again are derived from mere ideas of precedence, like that of "prince" (q.v.), which may be described as the generic sovereign title; the Spanish title of "grandee " (q.v.); or that of master " (q.v.), which as a title of honour survives in Scotland. Very rare are the titles of honour that have their origin in the idea of gentle birth, which indeed, in earlier times, was predicated of all wearers of titles in Europe. The only modern equivalent of the Anglo-Saxon atheling (q.v.) in Europe would appear to be the Austrian title of Edler, which means, strictly speaking, no more than "noble," though it implies a rank higher than that of the untitled Adeliger. The English title "earl" (q.v.) has a similar equivalent of "count." The word "gentleman" (q.v.) is not a origin, but passed through the stage of an official style as the title, any more than the French gentilhomme; it is, in so far as it is used in any definite sense at all, an attribute, like the German hochwolgeboren or the Russian barin-the equivalent of the Latin generosus, well-born." In the Mahommedan East its equivalent, in the sense of well-born, is the Arabic title sherif, So Rigord, the monk of St Denis, says in his Gesta of Philip Augustus, king of France, that he was so styled after the Caesars, who bore the name of Augustus because they augmented the empire. Unde iste merito dictus est Augustus ab aucla republica.

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now applied only to the descendants of the Prophet. The most characteristic and familiar of English titles, again, that of "lord," carries us back to a very primitive state, when the lord was par excellence the "loaf-warden " (hlaf-ord, hlaf-weard). Here it may be noted that the title "lord" has no foreign European equivalent: the German Herr (though Herrenhaus is strictly House of Lords), the Italian signor, the Spanish señor, the Slavonic pan and the Greek kúpios are all equivocal, being used most commonly in the sense of Mr (Master). Even the French do not translate "lord" by monseigneur (though seigneur is strictly speaking its equivalent), and still less by monsieur, though the ancient custom has survived of using the latter colloquially in place of all titles,' but by milord. Lastly there are two important European titles derived from personal relations with the sovereign, though they have long ceased to have any such connotation. Of these the oldest is that of 'count," which goes back to the comites (companions) of the early Roman emperors (see COUNT); the second is "baron," originally meaning no more than "man" and so, under the feudal system, the king's men par excellence, the great tenants-in-chief of the crown (see BARON). In England the barons formed and form the body of the peerage, "peer" not being a title of honour, but the description of a status and function bestowed by their creation upon all barons, viscounts, earls, marquesses and dukes (see PEERAGE). In France, on the other hand, " peer" (pair) was under the old monarchy a title of honour; for not even all dukes were peers of France, and the style of such as were, therefore, ran duc et pair.

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peculiarly aristocratic virtue ascribed by Lord Palmerston to the most Noble Order of the Garter: "There is no damned merit about it;" it has the crowning quality that it must needs be the monopoly of the few. Hereditary titles sink in value, indeed, just in proportion as they become common. In the United Kingdom their value has been kept up by the rule of primogeniture: there can be only one bearer of such a title in a single generation. In France custom distributes the various titles of a family among all the sons, the eldest son, for instance, of a duke inheriting his dukedom, the second son his marquisate, the third his countship, and so on. In Germany and Austria titles pass to all the sons in each successive generation, though in Prussia the rule of primogeniture has been introduced in the case of certain new creations (e.g. Fürst, prince). The result is that equivalent titles vary enormously in social significance in different countries. An attempt has been made to estimate the extent of this variation in the case of individual titles in articles devoted to them. Here we need only illustrate the argument by one striking example. The Russian title of prince" (knyaz) implies undoubted descent from the great reigning houses of Russia, Poland and Lithuania; but the title descends to all male children, none of whom is entitled to represent it par excellence. There may be three or four hundred princes bearing the same distinguished name; of these some may be great nobles, but others are not seldom found in quite humble capacities-waiters or droshky-drivers. The title in itself has little social value.

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In the countries east of the marches of the old Empire, i.e. From the above it will already have become apparent that Hungary and the Slav lands, existing titles are partly developed titles of honour, as they now survive in Europe, are picturesque from the native tradition (feudal in Hungary, Bohemia and relics of the feudal system (see FEUDALISM). In theory they are Poland; autocratic and Oriental in Russia and the lands of the still territorial, and it is the shadowy suggestion of landed estate | Balkan peninsula), partly borrowed from the West, like that of that gives, in France and Germany, to the nobiliary particles gróf (count) in Hungary and graf in Russia. Just as in autocratic de and von their mystic virtue. In Great Britain there has been Russia the sole indigenous title of honour (knyaz) is associated of late years a tendency in the case of some newly made peers with royal descent, so in the Mahommedan East there are, to drop the affectation of territorial power. In the case of some outside the reigning families, no hereditary titles, except that titles, e.g. Earl Carrington-this merely follows a very ancient of sherif, already mentioned. In India the hereditary styles of English tradition; even under the feudal system after the Norman certain great Mahommedan nobles are exceptions. that prove Conquest it was not unusual for the great nobles to use their the rule; they represent reigning families whose raj has been titles with their family names or those of their fiefs indifferently; absorbed in the imperial government, and they are still reigning for instance, the Norman earls of Derby described themselves, princes in the sense in which the heads of German mediatized as often as not, as Earls Ferrers (see DERBY, EARLS OF). Con- houses are so described (see MEDIATIZATION). For the rest, the vention, however, dictates that barons and viscounts should, titles of Oriental princes follow much the same gradation as on creation, adopt a territorial style. In the case of such titles those of the West. As caliph (q.v.), or vicar of the Prophet, the as Lord James of Hereford and Lord Morley of Blackburn, this Ottoman sultan is in Islam the equivalent of the pope in Roman style is adopted from the place of birth; for which a certain Catholic Christendom; his imperial dignity is signified by the precedent might perhaps be pleaded in the medieval custom Persian title of padishah (lord king), his function as leader of a exemplified in such names for royal princes as " John of Gaunt " militant religion by the style of "commander of the faithful." Henry of Woodstock." On the other hand, there has been (see AMIR). Shah is in Persia the equivalent of king; the style also a somewhat absurd tendency to exaggerate the territorial of shah-in-shah, king of kings, recalls the days of the Persian styles by piling one on the top of the other. It would be 'great king" familiar in the Old Testament. Khan (prince) invidious to mention actual instances; but the process may be and amir (commander, lord) are other Eastern sovereign titles. illustrated by the imaginary title of Baron Coneyhurst of Ockley. Pasha and bey, originally exclusively military titles, are now used From the fact that, as feudalism developed, fiefs became also as civilian titles of honour, but they are not hereditary. hereditary, it comes that most European titles of honour are When the pashalik of Egypt was made hereditary the situation hereditary. Knighthood alone formed, in general, an exception was ultimately regularized by bestowing on the pasha the Persian to this rule. Yet, in their origin, no one of the titles familiar title of khedive (q.v.). In the Far East, Japan has adopted to us were descendible from father to son, and the only hereditary a system of titles, based on her ancient feudal hierarchy, which quality was that of abstract nobility. Yet, by a curious inver- closely corresponds to that of Europe (see JAPAN). China, on sion of the whole idea of titles of honour, an inherited title has the other hand, stands apart in the curious custom of bestowing come to be far more valued than one bestowed; it has the titles on the ancestors of persons to be honoured, and in making 1 E.g. Monsieur de la Rochefoucauld, for M. le duc de la R. In them hereditary only for a limited number of generations (see the United Kingdom the parallel custom stops short of dukes. All CHINA: Social Customs). In Europe such posthumous honours other peers, from marquesses to barons, are commonly spoken of are rendered only in the case of saints (see CANONIZATION). and addressed by the title of lord.

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In Germany a distinction is drawn between those titles derived from estates still held by the head of the family and those that are landless. The latter are simply "of " (von), the former are "of and at (von und zu).

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Thus in the Instructions annexed to the commission for the selection of the new order of baronets, King James I. gives these precedence over knights, "because this is a Dignity, which shall be Hereditary, wherein divers circumstances are more considerable, than such a Mark as is but Temporary." (Selden, op. cit. p. 685.)

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Of ecclesiastical titles of honour it can only be said that they tend to an even greater exaggeration than those bestowed on secular dignities. The swelling styles of the Eastern patriarchs are relics of the days when Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria and Jerusalem were vying with each other for precedence (see CHURCH HISTORY and PATRIARCH). The style The designation barin (boyarin, boyar) is not, properly speaking, a title, but the equivalent of "gentleman."

of the bishop of Rome, who alone in the Western Church retains

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the name of pope, includes the old Roman titles of pontifex maximus and pater patriae, and always in his signatures the proudly humble phrase "slave of the slaves of God" (serous servorum Dei), based on Matt. xx. 27 (see POPE). Of ecclesiastical titles those expressing orders and no more-priest, deacon, sub-deacon and the rest are never honorary (Prester John, q.v., is a shadowy medieval exception). Those expressing office, whether in the Church at large (patriarch, archbishop, &c.), or in the papal court (e.g. protonotary), are often merely honorary. That of bishop even became for a time, after the Reformation, a title borne by certain secular princes (see BISHOP). Cardinal," which with the predicate Eminence (q.v.) is now reserved for the princes of the Roman Church, was at one time the honorary style of the chief clergy of great cathedrals generally (see CARDINAL). "Abbot," the official title of the head of the monastery, has also in several languages (e.g. the French abbé) come to be used as a purely honorary title (see ABBOT). For the honorary styles of the clergy in the English-greater part of the continent of Europe. It would therefore seem speaking countries, see the articles REVEREND, VICAR, RECTOR, CANON, DEAN. As for the archdeacon, it is only in the Church of England that he can be still defined as "one who performs archidiaconal functions"; elsewhere, if he exists at all, he is purely titular (see ARCHDEACON).

Among titles of honour, finally, may be reckoned honorary degrees bestowed by universities, the pope, and in England by the archbishop of Canterbury. Any degree may be bestowed honoris causa. The universities of Oxford and Cambridge thus regularly bestow the degree of D.D. (doctor of divinity) on those of their alumni who become bishops. It is also the custom to bestow honorary degrees at the yearly" Commemoration" (generally D.C.L., doctor of civil law, at Oxford; LL.D., doctor of laws, at Cambridge) on a selected list of eminent personages. The right of the archbishop of Canterbury to confer degrees honoris causa, known as "Lambeth degrees," is supposed to be derived from one of his powers as legatus natus of the pope, which survived the Reformation. An attempt was made by some of the Swiss reformers of the 16th century to abolish degrees. They were certainly "popish " in their origin, and others besides Herbert Spencer have objected to them as misleading, since they are by no means necessarily a hall-mark of learning. They tend, however, to multiply rather than to decrease in number, and in England some criticism has been aroused by the growing custom in certain quarters of assuming degrees (notably that of D.D.) granted corruptly, or for wholly insufficient reasons, by certain so-called universities," notably in the United States. For a list of the degrees of the principal universities and their hoods, see UNIVERSITIES, ad fin. The history of many peerage and other titles is outlined in the articles on historic families in this work. For British peerage titles the standard work is G. E. C. (okayne)'s Complete Peerage (1st ed., 8 vols., 1887; new ed., vol. i., 1910). For baronets and others see the manuals of Burke and Debrett. The standard authority for the royal houses and "high nobility" of Europe is the Almanach de Gotha, published yearly. See also the article NOBILITY, and for further references the authorities attached to those on individual titles, e.g. COUNT. (W. A. P.)

TITMOUSE (O. Eng. mase and tytmase, Ger. Meise, Swed. mes, Du. mees, Fr. mésange), the name long in use for several species of small English birds, which are further distinguished from one another by some characteristic appellation. These go to make up the genus Parus of Linnaeus, and with a large number of other genera form the Passerine family Paridae. Titmice are usually non-migratory, and the genus Parus occupies most of the globe except South America and the Australian region east of Lombok and Flores.

1 The prefix "tit" by heedless writers often used alone, though equally proper to the titlark (see PIPIT), is perhaps cognate with the Greek rris, which originally meant a small chirping bird (Ann. Nat. Ilist., 4th series, vol. x. p. 227), and has a diminutive form in the Icelandic Tillingur-the English or at least Scottish tiling. It is by false analogy that the plural of titmouse is made titmice; it should be titmouses. A nickname is very often added, as with many other familiar English birds, and in this case it is “tom.”

Among the more common European and English forms the first the great titmouse, P. major, but known also in many parts as the to be mentioned is that called, from its comparatively large size, oxeye, conspicuous by its black head, white cheeks and yellow breast, down which runs a black line while in spring the cock makes himself heard by a loud love-note that resembles the noise the British Islands and over nearly the whole of Europe and northern made in sharpening a saw. It is widely distributed throughout Asia. The next is the blue titmouse, bluccap or nun, P. coeruleus, smaller than the last and more common. Its names are so characteristic as to make any description needless. A third common species, but not so numerous as either of the foregoing, is the coal-titmouse, Some interest attaches to this species because of the difference P. ater, distinguished by its black cap, white cheeks and white nape. observable between the race inhabiting the scanty remnants of the ancient Scottish forests and that which occurs throughout the rest of Britain. The former is more brightly tinted than the latter, having a hardly either of which colours are to be seen in the same parts of clear bluish-grey mantle and the lower part of the back greenish, more southern examples, which last have been described as forming a distinct species, P. britannicus. But it is to be observed that the denizens of the old Scotch fir-woods are nearly midway in coloration. between the dingy southern birds and those which prevail over the unreasonable to speak of two species only: there should be either three or one, and the latter alternative is to be preferred, provided the existence of the local races be duly recognized. Much the same thing is to be noticed in the next species to be mentioned. the marshtitmouse, P. palustris, which, sombre as is its plumage, is subject to considerable local variation in its very extensive range, and has been called P. borealis in Scandinavia, P. alpestris in the Alps, and lugubris in south-eastern Europe, to say nothing of forms like P. baicalensis, P. camchatkensis and others, whose names denote its local variations in northern Asia, while no great violence is exercised if to these be tacked on P. atricapilla, with several geographical races which inhabit North America. A fifth British species is the rare crested titmouse, P. cristatus, only found in limited districts in Scotland, though common enough, especially in pine-woods, in many parts of Europe.

In addition to species of Parus, North America possesses two peculiar genera of tits-Psaltriparus and Auriparus. During the greater part of the year the various species of the genus Parus beginning of the breeding season. associate in family parties and only break up into pairs at the The nests are nearly always placed in a hollow stump, and consist of a mass of moss, feathers and hair, the last being worked almost into a kind of felt. Thercon the eggs, often to the number of eight or nine, are laid, and these The first plumage of the young closely resembles that of the parents; have a translucent white shell, freckled or spotted with rust colour. but, so far as is known, it has always a yellower tinge, very apparent on the parts, if there be such, which in the adult are white. Few birds are more restless in disposition. Most of the European species and some of the North American become familiar, haunting the neighbourhood of houses, especially in winter, and readily availing themselves of such scraps of food, about the nature of which they are not particular, as they can get. By gardeners every titmouse is generally regarded as an enemy, for it is supposed to do infinite is wholly false, for the buds destroyed are always found to be those damage to the buds of fruit-trees and bushes; but the accusation to which a grub-the bird's real object-has got access, so that there can be little doubt that the titmouse is a great benefactor to the horticulturist.

Akin to the genus Parus, but in many respects differing from it, is Acredula, containing that curious-looking bird the long-tailed or bottle titmouse, with many local races or species. The bird itself, having its tail longer than its body, is unlike any other found in the northern hemisphere, while its nest is a perfect marvel of construction, being in shape nearly oval, with a small hole in one side. The exterior is studded with pieces of lichen, worked into a firm texture of moss, wool and spiders' nests, and the inside is profusely lined with soft feathers-2379 having been, says Macgillvray, counted in one example. Not inferior in beauty or ingenuity is the nest built by the penduline titmouse, Aegithalus pendulinus, of the south of being suspended to a bough, while the former is nearly always placed Europe, which differs, however, not merely in composition, but in between two or more branches.

The so-called bearded titmouse, Panurus biarmicus, has habits wholly unlike those of any of the foregoing, and is now placed in

The signification of this name is obscure. It may perhaps be correlated with a Swedish name for the bird-Talgoxe.

Persons fond of watching the habits of birds may with little trouble provide a pleasing spectacle by adopting the plan, practised by the late A. E. Knox, of hanging a lump of suct or tallow by a short string to the end of a flexible rod stuck aslant into the ground close to the window of a sitting room. It is seldom long before a titmouse of some kind finds the dainty, and once found visits are made to it until every morsel is picked off. The attitudes of the birds as they cling to the swinging lure are very diverting, and none but a titmouse can succeed in keeping a foothold upon it.

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