Titled characters (WAS Voldemort's "lordship")

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 86187

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, MadameSSnape at a... wrote:
> In a message dated 11/30/2003 8:17:26 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
> gbannister10 at a... writes:
> Geoff:
> Speaking as a UK resident, my comment would be that the title Baron 
> is fairly rare - Baronet and also Baroness is not. Earl, Lord and 
> Duke are reasonably common and the wife of an Earl, for example, 
> might be styled Countess.
> 
> +++++++++++++
> 
> Sherrie here:
> 
> Is this in modern Britain, or historical Britain?  Was the title of
"Baron" 
> more common during earlier centuries (I'm thinking 12th or 13th - Henry 
> II/Richard I)?  According to Burke's (online at 
> http://www.burkes-peerage.net/sites/peerage/sitepages/page66-baron.asp):
> 
> "baron: holder of lowest rank of dignity, called a barony, in the
peerage (2) 
> of England, Great Britain, Ireland or United Kingdom (but almost
never of 
> Scotland, for which see lord). <snip>

> Somehow, I've always pictured the Bloody Baron as hailing ca. Magna
Carta, or 
> maybe earlier - sometime in the early Plantagenet years, at all
events.  Not 
> as late as Sir Nick... if you'll pardon the pun.
> 
> Sherrie


I think you're right. IIRC, the signers of the Magna Carta were
referred to as barons. So if the Bloody Baron is British, he would
have to date from the Norman era or earlier. I'm not aware of any
British barons in the fifteenth century; they were all dukes, earls,
and lords (perhaps technically barons but not referred to as such).
Now if we knew the Bloody Baron's name or had heard him speak, a guess
at his nationality would be easier. I still think that if he were
British, he would be styled as a lord, not a baron. He also strikes me
as having a kind of Gothic/Durmstrang air about him, appropriate to
the ghost of Slytherin, whereas Sir Nick is what Elizabeth I would
call "pure English" and undoubtedly graduated from Hogwarts.

Carol