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Lordship or Honour

An honour is an administrative unit based on a number of manors. The tenants of these manors owed suit to an honour court in addition to, or in place of, the normal manor court. The records produced by honour courts are manorial documents and are therefore included on the Manorial Documents Register. Not all manors were part of honours. The records of honour courts were normally kept on a manor by manor basis. Where possible honour documents which relate to individual manors have been entered under the name of each manor. This is indicated by the honour name appearing in brackets in the document descriptions.

An honour may also be known as a 'lordship', 'seignory' or 'barony'. The precise nature of these administrative units differed but, for the purposes of the Manorial Documents Register, the differences between them are considered marginal and they are treated synonymously. In the Manorial Documents Register for England they are referred to as honours and in the Manorial Documents Register for Wales as lordships. It is possible to search the Welsh Manorial Documents Register by lordship name.