In the early post-Conquest era of England, a barony by tenure was a territorial dignity where the status of 'baron' was inseparable from the possession of specific lands held 'per baroniam' (by barony). Unlike later peerages created by writ of summons or letters patent, these titles were incidental to the tenure of a 'caput baroniae,' or the head of the baronial estate. Under the feudal system, the tenant-in-chief was obligated to provide knight-service to the King and attend the Curia Regis, with his nobility being a functional consequence of his landed obligations.
The concept effectively became obsolete as the peerage transitioned toward a personal dignity. While the House of Lords traditionally favored the view that peerages were hereditary honors distinct from land, the 17th-century Fitzwalter case and the Berkeley Peerage claim (1861) definitively established that barony by tenure no longer conferred a seat in Parliament. Today, while some manorial baronies persist as incorporeal hereditaments, they represent local lordships rather than high peerage status in the modern constitutional sense.