DM Q&A: Landowner

[DOT]

How does land ownership work in cormyr? is it like a long term lease and the crown family technically owns it all and you or your descendants give it back eventually (similar to hawaii with blood natives vs settlers) or is it one of those things where you buy it you own it, you have a deed that says it belongs to you permantly?

[Munroe]

The Obarskyr Crown owns the land of the Forest Kingdom.

The Crown (either the king or, currently, his regent) can grant nobility, which includes granting a parcel of land to be managed by the newly appointed noble.  The noble can then rent or lease the land to others.  While it is extremely uncommon for the Crown to re-claim the land by revoking the noble title, it is possible.  Even land "owned" in a city or village still remains part of the land parcel of the local noble and is managed by the noble or his/her administration when it has a new tenant, occupant, or so-called "owner."   

Land that is not otherwise issued to someone (usually as part of a noble's land parcel) belongs to the Crown by default.  The King's Forest literally belongs to the king.

I've tried to bold all the significant sections in the quote below.     

From Power of Faerun (pages 10-12):

EARNING TITLES
Rulers never seem to have enough money, and they tend to hate to part with coin; however, courtiers can sometimes persuade them to gift some land and/or a title.   Many a low-born merchant, grown rich but contemptuous of his "so-called betters," has been more delighted to become a titled lord, with blazons and robes and courtesies, than to receive even staggering sums of coins.  As Khelban "Blackstaff" Arunsun put it, "One tends to want most what one does not have, and believes one can never have."

Generally, only a ruler can confer land, major offices, or noble status.  There are two sorts of titles in Faerun.  The most numerous, held by most serving military and courtiers, is an office with a grand job title such as Necessary Underlady of the Queen's Purse, Royal Clerk of the Understair, Page of the Royal Presence, or Lord High Marshal of the Royal Host.  You gain the title when accepting a job and lose it if dismissed from that work (something quite likely to happen to the more important offices in the event of a change of ruler).  Offices almost always include a salary and the ability to call on the support of (or even command) other courtiers in specific, narrowly defined ways; thus, these powers make them ready rewards for the supporters and friends of a ruler.  Offices might include a uniform and usually involve a few odd rituals or duties, inherited from earlier times (such as the duty to light the first candle in any chamber where royalty is sleeping, or the obligation to test any bath prepared for a ruler).

The rarer (and, to most distant eyes, more glamorous) sort of title is a noble title.  Although these can usually be stripped from you by a ruler just as an office can, they are in theory attached to you, not your occupation.  Noble titles might be hereditary (inherited from your elder kin, and passed down by you to your descendants) or what heralds of Faerun call extraordinary (for you only, dying with you).  Some such titles even include the word "extraordinary," as in Lord Falconblade, Baron Extraordinary of Blackpillars. 

Office titles might have their own heraldic blazon (coast of arms) or badge, or might use a differenced version of the arms of the court (royalty) they are bestowed by, but all noble titles have blazons--and in Faerun, must be "of someplace."  In other words, the title refers to a region, city, town, castle, village, or even an inn, tavern or crossroads.  In some cases, this place might be fanciful, might no longer exist, or you or your noble family might no longer have any connection to it--but it must be part of the grant of arms.  Most noble titles began as a royal acknowledgment of the ennobled person's ownership of lands within the realm--and as landlord, renting out homes and fields to tenant farmers, and sharing in crop and livestock sale monies, these lands brought steady income (often great wealth) to their noble owner. 

Noble offspring usually bear courtesy titles of smaller places within the lands of their titled parent's land.  If Harlo Belorgan succeeds his father to become "Lord Belorgan" (that is, Earl Belorgan of Wyvernshores, the farmland along the southeastern coast of the Wyvernwater), his wife Alclaera becomes Lady Belorgan (Countess of Wyvernshores).  His son Raedlar ("Red") succeds to Harlo's title of Viscount of Juniril, and younger sister Thaelmra takes (as "Baroness") Red's former title of Baron of Forgemarket (a market crossroads in the Wyvernshores countryside).  The unused courtesy titles of Baron of Lowbridge and Baron of Mossfarms (a village and the Belorgan estates, respectively) are held by Harlo, but if he and Alclaera have additional children, they will bear these titles.  A noble house never runs out of titles, because local heralds always meet with the senior competent noble of the house to devise a name and grant of arms for at least one title in reserve (for the Belorgans, these are Baron of Windkeep and Baron of Fallturret, the two Belorgan castles).  The details of inheritance, courtesy, and precedence (ranking among nobles) vary slightly from place to place, but are always administered by local court heralds (see Chapter 6).  In Faerun, thanks to the High Heralds, all heralds have a large measure of independence from rulers, nobles, and other courtiers, and can very rarely be corrupted or persuaded to overlook or "twist" anything heraldic.

Noble titles rarely include any sort of payment from the ruler or her court (although nobles are often chosen to fill senior-ranking offices, which have salaries and in many cases additional access to the royal treasury).

Noble titles include loyalty to a ruler, plus some sort of service (or payments in lieu of service) to the ruler, but inherited titles aren't as easy to lose as offices.  This is because nobility also includes legal rights "commoners" don't have, and because a ruler might be reluctant to anger other nobles by harsh treatment of a particular noble.  Acts of disloyalty or criminal behavior usually earn a noble punishment on an ascending scale depending on the severity of the transgression:  fines, banishment for a particular time, permanent exile, forfeiture of lands or properties, and death.  (These are usually less severe than the fates commoners face, for the same crimes.)

Stripping a "traitor noble" and her entire kin of nobility is considered an even more severe punishment than death, in most cases (athough "extinguishing" a noble family in this way usually involves loss of properties and as many executions as possible--because traitor nobles expelled from a realm and stripped of their lands and titles tend to become bitter, relentless foes of the ruler who return to do mischief or real harm).  Usually the only crimes that earn them the death penalty are murdering other nobles or royalty or committing an act of high treason (actively working to bring down a ruler--as opposed to the "low treason" of merely supporting traitors, by keeping silent or by financially aiding them).

Achieving Nobility
{Remainder of section omitted.}