As you'll recall, as per the tenants of the feudal system, originally, the kingdom of England was divided into about seven earldoms. Each earldom was further divided into subdivisions called baronies. Thus, initially, titles were connected to land holdings.

Of course, the feudal system was never perfectly implemented; as u/butter_milk explains in this answer,

the land-title relationship varied greatly depending on the case. It also became common for titles to be associated with a house rather than the actual land the house was on (ie, Berkeley was a castle, not a land-holding). Sometimes when a noble title was created the king gave land and/or a house with it, sometimes they did not. Sometimes the family sold or lost the land, but kept the title.

When did this disassociation between title and actual landholding occur? Well, you'll see that I asked this very same question in the thread I linked to. It seems like the jury is still out on that one.

edit: links didn't work the first time

Even with some reasonable timeframe specified the answer would be "varies/depends"--but asking about 1000+ years would demand the sort of unsourced generalizing frowned upon here.

Indeed, arguably that timeframe might include the present. While the last non-royal elevations to the hereditary peerage happened in the 1980s (and one might dare speculate these will indeed be the last) the other sorts--life and royal--are still very much alive.

FUN FACT: In the closing years of the present Queen's reign there are more 30 dukedoms in the UK. In the later years of her namesake Elizabeth I there were zero in England! The peerage is far from an olden days thing--despite it's obviously diminished influence.

Leaving feudalism and land tenure behind - the notion of titles being defined by the estates to which they referred - and moving into the early modern and modern periods, often there was no pecuniary benefit associated with an elevation of rank but it was certainly a form of social prestige. Most reference volumes dealing with the English/Scottish/Irish, British, and UK peerages explain the order of precedence of the peerage in detail. Since you asked about the English peerage (now absorbed into the Peerage of the United Kingdom), the present order of precedence for men in the United Kingdom is as follows, from Burke's Peerage, 107th Edition:

• The Sovereign (whether male or female)
• In Scotland, the Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland rank here but only when the General Assembly is in session. Otherwise, they rank with the other prelates below.
• The Prince Consort (this was established by an Order-in-Council by Elizabeth II and is not valid where the precedence is set traditionally and formally by Parliament)
• The Sovereign's eldest son
• The Sovereign's younger sons, ordered according to their birth
• The Sovereign's grandsons, ordered according to the rules of primogeniture
• The Sovereign's brothers, ordered according to their birth
• The Sovereign's uncles (the brothers of the sovereign's royal parent through whom s/he inherited the throne), ordered according to their birth
• The Sovereign's nephews (the sons of the Sovereign's brothers and sisters, ordered according to the rules of primogeniture)
• The Sovereign's cousins (the sons of the brothers and sisters of the Sovereign's royal parent through whom s/he inherited the throne), ordered according to the rules of primogeniture
• The Archbishop of Canterbury
• The Lord Chancellor
• The Archbishop of York
• The Archbishop of Wales
• The First Lord of the Treasury (Prime Minister)
• The Lord President of the Privy Council
• The Speaker of the House of Commons
• The Lord Speaker of the House of Lords (since 2006 - formerly this person would have held higher precedence that the Speaker of the House of Commons)
• The Keeper of the Great Seal of Scotland - if a peer
• The Keeper of the Privy Seal of Scotland - if a peer
• The President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom
• The Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales
• The Lord Privy Seal
• The Lord Great Chamberlain, The Earl Marshal, The Lord Stewart, and the Lord Chamberlain - the precedence of these office holders is determined by the precedence of their personal rank and class of their peerage in relation to one another.
• The Hereditary High Constable of Scotland
• The Master of the Household in Scotland
• Dukes in the Peerage of England according to the dates of creation of each peerage
• Dukes in the Peerage of Scotland according to the dates of creation of each peerage
• Dukes in the Peerage of Great Britain accoding to the dates of creation of each peerage
• Dukes in the Peerage of Ireland according to the dates of creation of each peerage
• Dukes in the Peerage of the United Kingdom according to the dates of creation of each peerage
• Dukes in the post-Union Peerage of Ireland according to the dates of creation of each peerage
• Marquesses in the Peerage of England according to the dates of creation of each peerage
• Marquesses in the Peerage of Scotland according to the dates of creation of each peerage
• Marquesses in the Peerage of Great Britain accoding to the dates of creation of each peerage
• Marquesses in the Peerage of Ireland according to the dates of creation of each peerage
• Marquesses in the Peerage of the United Kingdom according to the dates of creation of each peerage
• Marquesses in the post-Union Peerage of Ireland according to the dates of creation of each peerage
• Dukes' eldest sons according to the peerage and seniority of their fathers
• Earls in the Peerage of England according to the dates of creation of each peerage
• Earls in the Peerage of Scotland according to the dates of creation of each peerage
• Earls in the Peerage of Great Britain accoding to the dates of creation of each peerage
• Earls in the Peerage of Ireland according to the dates of creation of each peerage
• Earls in the Peerage of the United Kingdom according to the dates of creation of each peerage
• Earls in the post-Union Peerage of Ireland according to the dates of creation of each peerage
• Marquesses' eldest sons according to the peerage and seniority of their fathers
• The Keeper of the Great Seal of Scotland - if not a peer
• The Keeper of the Privy Seal of Scotland - if not a peer
• Dukes' younger sons according to the peerage and seniority of their fathers
• Viscounts in the Peerage of England according to the dates of creation of each peerage
• Viscounts in the Peerage of Scotland according to the dates of creation of each peerage
• Viscounts in the Peerage of Great Britain accoding to the dates of creation of each peerage
• Viscounts in the Peerage of Ireland according to the dates of creation of each peerage
• Viscounts in the Peerage of the United Kingdom according to the dates of creation of each peerage
• Viscounts in the post-Union Peerage of Ireland according to the dates of creation of each peerage
• Earls' eldest sons according to the peerage and seniority of their fathers
• Marquesses' younger sons according to the peerage and seniority of their fathers
• Barons in the Peerage of England according to the dates of creation of each peerage
• Lords of Parliament in the Peerage of Scotland according to the dates of creation of each peerage
• Barons in the Peerage of Great Britain accoding to the dates of creation of each peerage
• Barons in the Peerage of Ireland according to the dates of creation of each peerage
• Barons in the Peerage of the United Kingdom according to the dates of creation of each peerage
• Barons in the post-Union Peerage of Ireland according to the dates of creation of each peerage
• Life Peers
• Viscounts' eldest sons according to the peerage and seniority of their fathers
• Earls' younter sons according to the peerage and seniority of their fathers
• Barons' eldest sons according to the peerage and seniority of their fathers
• Viscounts' youngest sons according to the peerage and seniority of their fathers
• Barons' younger sons according to the peerage and seniority of their fathers
• The Bishop of London
• The Bishop of Durham
• The Bishop of Winchester
• Diocesan bishops in order of seniority
• Suffragan bishops in order of seniority
• Knights of the Order of the Garter
• Knights of the Order of the Thistle
• Knights of the Order of St Patrick
• Baronets in the Baronetage of England according to seniority
• Baronets in the Baronetage of Nova Scotia according to seniority
• Eldest sons of the younger sons of peers
• Baronets' eldest sons according to the baronetage and seniority of their fathers
• Knights of the Garters' eldest sons
• Baronets' younger sons
• Knights Grand Cross
• Knights of the Order of the Bath
• Knights of the Order of the Star of India
• Knights of the Order of St Michael and St George
• Knights of the Order of the Indian Empire
• Knights of the Royal Victorian Order
• Knights of the Order of the British Empire (Within each order, Knights Bachelor follow Knights Commander or Companion, Lieutenant or Officer, and all are ranked according to the seniority of their appointment)
• Esquires of the Sovereign
• Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber
• Esquires of each Order of Knighthood
• Esquires by Creation
• Esquires by Office

Women have their own table of precedence but that was long enough to compile so I'm going to refrain from adding the women's list here.

While this may all seem a bit outdated and silly to modern sensibilities in a period when personal honor was considered as a defining characteristic for nobles and for much of society at large, the prestige conveyed by having a higher precedence was a boost to a person's honor and it was worth fighting for. Thus you have instances of Scottish nobles fighting over which of them had the right to precede the other into Parliament and royal mistresses doing everything within their power to ensure that their bastard's patent of nobility was signed and registered first so that he and his heirs would forever hold precedence over the son and heirs of a rival mistress. (For this last situation, I'm thinking explicitly of the rivalry between the duchess of Castlemaine and the duchess of Portsmouth who managed to get her son made a duke at the age of three before Castlemaine was able to get her son made one even though he was ten years older than Portsmouth's child.)

For information about the fighting Scottish nobles, see Keith M. Brown, Bloodfeud in Scotland, 1573-1625: Violence, Justice and Politics in an Early Modern Society (Edinburgh, 1986).