False titles of nobility

False titles of nobility are supposed titles of nobility that have been fabricated and are not recognised by any government and were not so recognised in the past, even in countries in which titles of nobility once existed or still exist. They have received an increasing amount of press attention, as the number of schemes that attempt to sell these titles has increased. False titles are also sometimes connected to self-styled orders of chivalry.

British titles

It is impossible to purchase a British peerage title as such a transaction would be in breach of the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act, 1925. Only titles from the semi-extinct feudal system may legally be sold.

The British embassy in the United States in regard to sales of titles of peerage warns that "the sale of British titles is prohibited."

Scotish baronies

In Scotland, until the Abolition of Feudal Tenure (Scotland) Act of 2000, the transfer of such a prescriptive barony required some interest in land, specifically the caput baronium (the seat of the barony). Since the Act, the titles stand on their own and transference by sale without land is legal.

The Scottish feudal baron is addressed as The Much Honoured. The Scottish Court of the Lord Lyon King of Arms has ruled that a Scottish feudal baron is the equal of a Continental baron who is the chief of his family (in some European nations all males take the title but only the head or chief of the family has a superior rank).

Manorial lordships

The title Lord of the manor is a feudal title of ownership and is legally capable of sale. The owner of a Lordship of the Manor is known as [Personal name], The Lord/Lady of the Manor of [Place name]. Owning a title of Lord of the Manor does not by itself replace the title of Mr, Mrs, or Miss, although under English common law a person may chose to be known by any name they see fit as long as it is not done to "commit fraud or evade an obligation."

There are three elements to a Manor, the first is Lordship of the manor, the second is Manorial land and the third element is the Manorial rights. The three elements may exist separately or be combined, the first element being the title may be held in moieties and may not be subdivided, this is prohibited by the Statute of Quia Emptores preventing subinfeudation whereas the second and third elements can be subdivided.

In many cases the title Lord of the Manor may no longer have any land or rights and in such cases the title is known as an ‘incorporeal hereditament’. Before the Land Registration Act 2002 it was possible to volunteer to register lordship titles, most did not seek to register. Since 13 October 2003 it has not been possible to apply for first registration of a title of a manor, however dealings in previously registered titles remain subject to compulsory registration with H.M Land Registry.

According to John Martin Robinson, Maltravers Herald Extraordinary and co-author of The Oxford Guide to Heraldry, "Lordship of this or that manor is no more a title than Landlord of The Dog and Duck".

There have however been cases were manors have been sold and by accident the seller has parted with rights to unregistered land in England and Wales.

Continental European titles

Many who choose to invent false titles of nobility take advantage of the pool of formerly genuine titles of nobility that derive from a time when a country, now a republic, was once a monarchy; for example France, Austria, and the many parts of Germany that once had sovereign nobles. One advantage of assuming such a title, is that, contrary to the situation involving the British nobility, there is usually no longer any official arbitrator who can or will judge between two separate claimants to such a title. In some such countries, titles may nevertheless be protected by an appropriate law, such as France, or by an extension of copyright law, like in Portugal.

Italy

Some vendors of fake titles claim to arrange for the customer to acquire an Italian title based on adoption or even through notarial acts ceding the titles to the customer. In Italy, where titles of nobility have not been officially recognised since 1948, and where nobility by feudal tenure was abolished in most regions during the years immediately prior to 1820, an adoptive child cannot succeed to his adoptive parent's title, and no legal act can serve to renounce a hereditary title.

Self-styled titles

Not uncommonly someone makes up a completely false title that does not even purport to belong to an existing nation. This is done specifically in order to lessen the chances of the false title being found out as such (or so the false claimants hope). A notable example of this sort is that of a one His Imperial and Royal Highness Prinz Karl Friedrich von Deutschland. He is a man living in the United Kingdom but who pretends to hold the title of Prince and heir to the imperial throne of the Holy Roman Empire. Often, but not always, the motivation for someone doing this is so that they can grant false titles or honors (usually membership in a false or self-styled order of chivalry) to others in exchange for payment. Sometimes, as in the case just cited, titles or honors are instead granted for what are euphemistically referred to as donations. An example of someone who received a false title from the above Prinz Karl Friedrich von Deutschland is a one Lytton Patrick Brown who received the title His Excellency Graf von Bretzenheim in April 2007. This Prinz Karl Friedrich von Deutschland also maintains an elaborate collection of web sites that attempt to create the illusion of legitimacy for his assumed false title. Many of these websites that support the illusion of legitimacy for false titles also have aliases under additional domain names.

See also

• Title
• Honorary title
• Titles
• Use of courtesy titles and honorifics in professional writing
• Honorific
• Style (manner of address)
• Royal and noble styles
• Forms of address in the United Kingdom
• Self-styled orders
• Monarchy
• Nobility
• Peerage
• Royal and noble ranks
• Great Officer of State
• Aristocracy

External links

• Fake Titles