Viscount
The viscounts served as deputies of the county. They had military, financial, administrative and judicial authority. They carried out court orders and held courts of their own. Viscounts also collected money for the king. Starting with the reign of Philip the Fair they were paid regular salaries. In the early tenth century, viscounts in the south of France gave themselves the rights of counts for their own profit. In Narbonne and Nimes the office became hereditary just like that of a count. Elsewhere in France viscounts began replacing counts where they could. A Viscounty (or Viscountship) was the office, area or jurisdiction of a viscount. By the eleventh century viscounts had become hereditary offices in most of Western Europe. In Normandy, before 1066, Duke William I began to view the position of a viscount as being removable. After 1066, and as King of England, William made several of his viscounts in Normandy, earls in England (an English earl was about the same as a count in Europe). But there were no viscounts in the English peerage and he did not create any.