Note that for Lords in the Baronage of Scotland a baron is a lord and a lord is a baron and is interchangeable, the chapeau represents Scottish barons in historic heraldry instead of a coronet.
It was created by James VI as a barony in 1609 for Frederick Stewart, son of William Stewart, Commendator of Pittenweem.[3] Fredrick Stewart assigned the title and lands of the Lordship and Barony to Thomas Erskine, Viscount Fenton, later 1st Earl of Kellie, in 1614. Between 1631 and 1672 the Lordship and Barony was held by the Crown. It was held "in place of the late lords" so that when the Barony and Lordship later passed to the 3rd Earl of Kellie it was not as a new creation but by an assignation of the Lordship and Barony.[4]
The title was used as a courtesy title for the eldest son of the Earls of Kellie until it was conveyed to Sir John Anstruther by Thomas Alexander Erskine, 6th Earl of Kellie and 6th Lord of Pittenweem. Sir Windham Carmichael-Anstruther, 7th Baronet, 12th Baron of Pittenweem, succeeded in breaking the entail of his Anstruther estates, and sold them, together with the Lordship and Barony of Pittenweem to William Baird of Elie, who became the 13th Lord of Pittenweem in 1856.[5]
The Lordship passed to Lady Lavinia Enid Muriel Baird in 1961 and was conveyed to the lawyer and Writer to The Signet William Ronald Crawford Miller in 1978. After the Abolition of Feudal Tenure etc. (Scotland) Act 2000, the Lordship and Barony of Pittenweem became an incorporeal heritable property, no longer attached to the land.[6]
William Ronald Crawford Miller, 17th Baron of Pittenweem, died in 2011.[7] The Lord Lyon recognised Claes Zangenberg as the 18th Lord of Pittenweem in a Letter Patent dated 27 June 2017.[8]
Claes Zangenberg, 18th Baron of Pittenweem (born 3 May 1976) is the elder son of Niels Zangenberg and his wife Rita Simonsen. From birth he was formally styled as Mr Claes Zangenberg. By assignation in 2017 he succeeded as Baron of Pittenweem (created 1609).[10][11]
In 2010, he married Yasar Jawda (born 27 September 1983), and they have two children:
The crest sits atop a helm appropriate to the Dignity of a Baron in the Baronage of Scotland. Per pile reversed Or and Vert, in chief two Maunches Gules and in base a scroll Argent with seal pendant.
Escutcheon
The pliers are a pun on the German origin of the Zangenberg name. The Maunches and the scroll is a reference to the legal career of the armiger. A dexter hand couped holding a pair of open pliers proper.