I've read somewhere that "baron" was originally a celtic (gallic) word for "man". After the Roman conquest the meaning of the word went through two developements:
According to this, the old german "baro" has nothing to do with the title "baron". This title was introduced into the vocabulary describing nobles in France (and in norman England), and I'm not at all shure if it was used in German-speaking regions before the late middle-ages, then obviously borrowed from French. The old german and old english terms for nobility do not have the word "baron".
I can't remember the source for this all, though.
-ILE
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