Substantive title

Substantive title

A substantive title (or substantive peerage) is a title of nobility or royalty held by someone (normally by one person alone), which they gained through either grant or inheritance, as opposed to one given or loaned to them either as a courtesy title, or gained through marriage.

The British peerage and some continental nobilities confer titles only to individuals, such as Duke of Leinster (a substantive titles). However, in continental nobility and royalty, some titles may be used by a number of individuals in a given family, for example, Princes and Princesses of Liechtenstein, of Sweden or of Prussia or Dukes and Duchesses in Saxony; these are usually treated as non-substantive titles (with an exception in some cases for the head of the house).

Titles granted to junior members of royal families are usually substantive titles, such as "Earl of Wessex" (in the United Kingdom), "Prince of Orange" (in the Netherlands), "Duke of Brabant" (in Belgium), "Duke of Orléans" (in France), etc. Titles common to junior members of a given royal or noble family are not substantive titles. The titles of heirs apparent to a monarchy are treated as substantive titles, such as the aforementioned Dutch "Prince of Orange" and also the Spanish "Prince of the Asturias" and British "Prince of Wales".

For the British peerage, written references to

* substantive peers are supposed to be in the form "The Marquess of Winchester", "The Earl of Derby", etc., including the preceding definite article (The)

* courtesy peers are named without the article, e.g. "Marquess of Blandford", "Earl of Sunderland", etc., excluding a preceding definite article

Within the German nobility, the difference between a holder of a substantive title and a courtesy title in any given family many not be easily determined as some families use the same titles for all members. However, the head of a comital family may be titled "The Count of X" or "NN, Count of X" while all other members of his family are titled "Count(ess) NN of X". Not all families use the same title for the head and junior members.

ee also

* Aristocracy
* Ennoblement
* Hereditary peer
* Jure uxoris


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