Each “barony” should pay £100, a sum afterwards reduced to 100 marks. ----- Footnote 369: See Pollock and Maitland, I. 262, and authorities there cited. “An honour or barony is thus regarded as a mass of lands which from of old have been held by a single title.” An exact definition is, perhaps, impossible: the term was first applied in early days without any technical meaning; in later days each “honour” had separately established its position by prescriptive usage. See also Pike, _House of Lords_, pp. 88-9, on the difficulty of defining “an entire barony.” Footnote 370: This change was not complete in 1215, but Magna Carta, when it uses “_barones_” alone, seems to refer to “_barones majores_” only (see cc. 2, 21, 61). In c. 14, “_barones majores_” are contrasted with “_barones minores_.” ----- Relief was thereafter a fixed sum, while the size of the barony varied in each case. As the same holds true of the knight’s fee, it is doubly ridiculous to attempt to discover an equation between the knight’s fee and the barony founded upon the ratio of the sums payable. Coke, however, was guilty of this absurdity.[371] ----- Footnote 371: See Coke on _Littleton_, II. iv. s. 112, and _ibid._ _Second Institute_, p. 7. Founding on the later practice of the exchequer, which exacted one hundred marks of relief from a barony, and one hundred shillings from a knight’s fee, he assumed the false equation "1 barony = 13⅓ knight’s fees." If he had known of the earlier practice, which followed the rule of John’s Charter, he might have jumped to another equation, equally false, namely that "1 barony = 20 knight’s fees." There is, in reality, no fixed proportion between the two, either as to extent or value. ----- (3) _Baronia comitis integra._ A peculiar phrase is used in the text, an "earl’s barony" appearing where “earldom” might be expected.[372] The reason is that “earldom” originally implied the holding of an office and not the ownership of land, whereas relief was payable for the earl’s lands or “honour,” not for his office. The Charter, therefore, uses words well fitted to make its meaning clear. The earl (or _comes_) was the successor of the ealdorman as local governor of a county or group of counties. His title was official, not tenurial, or even, in early times, necessarily hereditary. ----- Footnote 372: In the _Inspeximus_ of Edward I., however, the word _comitatus_ (earldom) displaces the _baronia comitis_ of the text. See _Statutes of Realm_, I. 114. -----