Titles of “honour,” such as are duke, count, marquis, and baron, are honourable; as signifying the value set upon them by the sovereign power of the commonwealth: which titles, were in old time titles of office and command, derived some from the Romans, some from the Germans and French: dukes, in Latin duces , being generals in war: counts, comites , such as bear the general company out of friendship, and were left to govern and defend places conquered and pacified: marquises, marchiones , were counts that governed the marches, or bounds of the empire. Which titles of duke, count, and marquis, came into the empire about the time of Constantine the Great, from the customs of the German “militia.” But baron seems to have been a title of the Gauls, and signifies a great man; such as were the king’s or prince’s men, whom they employed in war about their persons; and seems to be derived from “vir,” to “ber,” and “bar,” that signified the same in the language of the Gauls, that “vir” in Latin; and thence to “bero,” and “baro,” so that such men were called