Paramount (derived from the Anglo-French word paramont, which means up above, or par a mont, meaning up or on top of the mountain), 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, (from par d val, meaning in the valley). 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.
A well-documented example of paramountcy is the Lordship of Bowland. In 1311, it was subsumed as part of the Honor of Clitheroe into the Earldom of Lancaster. After 1351, it was administered as part of the Duchy of Lancaster, with the Duke (from 1399, the Sovereign) acknowledged lord paramount over the Forest of Bowland and the ten manors of the Liberty of Bowland. As lord paramount, he was styled Lord King of Bowland.
Famous quotes containing the words lord and/or paramount:
““Child,
why do you waste your time
on childish things alone?”
“Clothe yourself in anger.”
“Take courage,
and cast off this honesty
toward your lover.”
When her girlfriends
gave her such advice,
she answered,
her face frightened,
“Speak softly.
The lord of my breath
is still in my heart.
No doubt he’ll hear you.””
—Amaru (c. seventh century A.D.)
“My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)