Paramount is the highest authority, or that being of the greatest importance. The word was first used as a term of feudal law, of the
lordLord is a title with various meanings. It can denote a prince or a feudal superior . The title today is mostly used in connection with the peerage of the United Kingdom or its predecessor countries, although some users of the title do not themselves hold peerages, and use it 'by courtesy'...
, the
lord paramount, who held his fief from no superior lord, and was thus opposed to
mesne lordA mesne lord was a lord in the feudal system who had vassals who held land from him, but who was himself the vassal of a higher lord. A mesne lord did not hold land directly of the king, that is to say he was not a tenant-in-chief. His subinfeudated estate was called a "mesne estate"...
, one who held from a superior. To those who held their fiefs from one who was not a
lord paramount was given the correlative term paravail, (from
par d val, meaning
in the valley). The word was confused by English lawyers with "avail," help, assistance, profit, and applied to the actual working tenant of the land, the lowest
tenantA leasehold estate is an ownership of a temporary right to land or property in which a lessee or a tenant holds rights of real property by some form of title from a lessor or landlord....
or occupier.
A well-documented example of paramountcy is the
Lordship of BowlandThe Lordship of Bowland, an ancient English title connected with the Forest of Bowland in the northwest of England, was once thought lost and was only recently rediscovered. It disappeared from sight in 1885 when the estates of the Towneleys, one of Lancashire’s great aristocratic families, were...
. In 1311, it was subsumed as part of the
Honor of ClitheroeThe Honour of Clitheroe is an ancient grouping of manors and royal forests centred on Clitheroe Castle in Lancashire, England; an honour traditionally being the grant of a large landholding complex, not all of whose parts are contiguous...
into the Earldom of Lancaster. After 1351, it was administered as part of the
Duchy of LancasterThe Duchy of Lancaster is one of the two royal duchies in England, the other being the Duchy of Cornwall. It is held in trust for the Sovereign, and is used to provide income for the use of the British monarch...
, with the Duke (from 1399, the Sovereign) acknowledged lord paramount over the
Forest of BowlandThe Forest of Bowland, also known as the Bowland Fells, is an area of barren gritstone fells, deep valleys and peat moorland, mostly in north-east Lancashire, England. A small part lies in North Yorkshire, and much of the area was historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire...
and the ten manors of the
LibertyOriginating in the Middle Ages, a liberty was traditionally defined as an area in which regalian rights were revoked and where land was held by a mesne lord...
of Bowland. As lord paramount, he was styled
Lord King of Bowland.