Peerage of England
The ranks of the English peerage are, in descending order, Duke, Marquess, Earl, Viscount, and Baron. While most newer English peerages descend only in the male line, many of the older ones (particularly older baronies) can descend through females. Under English inheritance law all daughters are co-heirs, so many older English peerage titles have fallen into abeyance between various female co-heirs.
Baron
In the Peerage of England, the Peerage of Great Britain, the Peerage of Ireland and the Peerage of the United Kingdom (but not in the Peerage of Scotland), barons form the lowest rank, placed immediately below viscounts. A woman of baronial rank has the title baroness. In the Kingdom of England, the medieval Latin word ", baronis" was used originally to denote a tenant-in-chief of the early Norman kings who held his lands by the feudal tenure of "barony" (in Latin "per baroniam"), and who was entitled to attend the Great Council (Magnum Concilium) which by the 13th century had developed into the Parliament of England.
Feudal baronies (or "baronies by tenure") are now obsolete in England and without any legal force but any such historical titles are held "in gross", that is to say are deemed to be enveloped within a more modern extant peerage title also held by the holder, sometimes along with vestigial manorial rights and tenures by grand serjeanty.