LORDPARAMOUNT

Lord Paramount

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 lord, the lord paramount, who held his fief from no superior lord, and was thus opposed to mesne lord, 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, . The word was confused by English lawyers with "avail," help, assistance, profit, and applied to the actual working tenant of the land, the lowest tenant or occupier.

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