ABSTRACT
We have now considered the use and meaning of titles in England and Scotland in the High Middle Ages. The titles of knight banneret, knight and squire, and their development and use give us a picture of slow change in the aristocracy throughout the twelfth century, intensifying rather in the years between 1180 and 1230. In those two generations-the time of Richard the Lionheart, John and Philip Augustus-the aristocracy became both larger, and better defined. Status levels multiplied and social dignities evolved to meet the change. These were times of change too in Wales; a time when the native aristocracy was forced under outside pressure to change its own use of the ancient royal title, and find and define a new title which had a relevance to wider European developments. The society of Wales had to adapt to the military trappings, at least, of Anglo-French knightly society. Welsh aristocratic society was considerably less insular by 1230 than it had been in 1150.
