Editing Viscount (section)

==History==
During the [[Carolingian Empire]], the kings appointed [[count]]s to administer [[Government of the Carolingian Empire#subdivision|provinces]] and other smaller regions, as [[governors]] and military commanders. Viscounts were appointed to assist the counts in their running of the province, and often took on [[judiciary|judicial]] responsibility.<ref name="Upshur, Terry, Holoka, Goff & Cassar">{{cite book|title=Cengage Advantage Books: World History|last1=Upshur|first1=Jiu-Hwa|last2=Terry|first2=Janice|last3=Holoka|first3=Jim|last4=Goff|first4=Richard|last5=Cassar|first5=George H.|volume=I|year=2011|pages=329|isbn=9781111345167|publisher=Wadsworth Publishing Co Inc|location=California}}</ref> The kings strictly prevented the offices of their counts and viscounts from becoming hereditary, in order to consolidate their position and limit chance of rebellion.<ref name="Upshur, Terry, Holoka, Goff & Cassar"/>

The title was in use in [[Normandy]] by at least the early 11th century.<ref name="Loud">{{cite book|title=Conquerors and churchmen in Norman Italy|last=Loud|first=G. A.|year=1999|page=4|publisher=Ashgate Publishing Co.|location=Surrey, UK|isbn=9780860788034}}</ref> Similar to the Carolingian use of the title, the [[Normans|Norman]] viscounts were local administrators, working on behalf of the [[Duke of Normandy|Duke]].<ref name="Petit=Dutaillis" /> Their role was to administer justice and to collect [[tax]]es and revenues, often being [[castellan]] of the local [[castle]]. Under the Normans, the position developed into a hereditary one, an example of such being the viscounts in [[Bessin]].<ref name="Petit=Dutaillis">{{cite book|title=The Feudal Monarchy in France and England|last=Petit-Dutaillis|first=C.|page=162|publisher=Routledge|year=1936|location=Oxford, UK|isbn=9781136203503}}</ref> The viscount was eventually replaced by [[bailiff]]s, and [[provost (civil)|provost]]s.<ref name="Petit=Dutaillis"/>

As a rank of the [[Peerages in the United Kingdom|British peerage]], it was first recorded in 1440, when [[John Beaumont, 1st Viscount Beaumont|John Beaumont]] was created Viscount Beaumont by King [[Henry VI of England|Henry VI]].<ref name="Journals of the House of Lords">{{cite journal|title=Journals of the House of Lords|pages=512|volume=cii|year=1870|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=S8I4AQAAIAAJ&q=onto+whom&pg=PA512|access-date=16 June 2014}}</ref> The word ''viscount'' corresponds in the UK to the [[Anglo-Saxon language|Anglo-Saxon]] [[sheriff|''shire reeve'']] (root of the non-nobiliary, royal-appointed office of [[sheriff]]). Thus, early viscounts originally received their titles from the monarch, and not hereditarily; they eventually tended to establish hereditary principalities in the wider sense. The rank is a relatively late introduction to the British system, and on the evening of [[Coronation of Queen Victoria|her coronation]] in 1838, [[Queen Victoria]] recorded in her diary an explanation for this by then-[[Prime Minister of the United Kingdom|Prime Minister]] [[Lord Melbourne]] (himself a viscount):

<blockquote>I spoke to Ld M. about the numbers of Peers present at the Coronation, & he said it was quite unprecedented. I observed that there were very few Viscounts, to which he replied "There are very few Viscounts," that they were an old sort of title & not really English; that they came from Vice-Comites; that Dukes & Barons were the only real English titles;—that Marquises were likewise not English, & that people were mere made Marquises, when it was not wished that they should be made Dukes.<ref>{{cite book | title=Queen Victoria's Journals | chapter=28 June 1838 | location=Buckingham Palace, Princess Beatrice's copies | volume=4 | date=1 June – 1 October 1838 | page=84 | chapter-url=http://www.queenvictoriasjournals.org/search/displayItemFromId.do?FormatType=fulltextimgsrc&QueryType=articles&ItemID=qvj02134&volumeType=PSBEA#zoomHolder  | access-date=25 May 2013}}</ref></blockquote>