I'm researching about the proliferation and devaluation of titles, which I call "title drift," throughout history. I'm mostly focusing on corporate title drift, such as the rapid diffusion of the title Chief Executive Officer among American corporations during the 1960s and 1970s, superseding other titles such as President.
However, I would like to learn more about historical title drift, such as nobility and court titles. For instance, I have read about how the title sebastos (σεβαστός) was sometimes used by the Emperor himself, but by the 12th century, it was increasing awarded to lesser persons to the point there was a hyperinflation of the title with prefixes being added on to increase value.
I'm sure monarchs and nobility saw and understood this process; besides pride and power, what were the pressures to continue it? Were there any pressures to stop or reverse it?
Edit: Also, any good sources on this subject or generally about titles, nobility or otherwise, would be very helpful. The area of my research is about job titles in the workplace, but anything about titles gives me some good perspective.
In China, 'title drift' has occurred many times, especially whenever there was a change in dynasty or a vast outbreak of war, mainly used by individual kingdoms as a way of legitimizing their own rule.
The clearest example would be the title of the absolute leader in the country.
During the Shang 商 dynasty, the leader of the kingdom would be known as king 王. However, when Zhou 周 overthrew Shang, the king Ji Fa 姬发 wished to establish his rule as being heavenly ordained, therefore he added the heavens 天 to his title - heavenly king 天王 or son of heaven 天子.
As the Zhou dynasty slowly lost its influence over the nobility, the various marquis took control over the lands and the 'heavenly king' was a ruler in name only. In 334 BC the marquis of Wei 魏 and Qi 齐 declared themselves as kings, with the other major players during the period (Qin 秦, Han 韩, Zhao 赵, Yan 燕) following suit.
This greatly devalued the title of king, and when Qin reunited the kingdoms into a single empire, the king Ying Zheng 嬴政 decided he required a new title to set himself apart of being 'just a king'. Therefore taking inspiration for the mythical 'three sovereigns and five emperors' 三皇五帝, he declared himself emperor 皇帝 - a combination of both sovereign 皇 and emperor 帝 as he thought himself as virtuous as the sovereigns and more capable than the past emperors. The term emperor 皇帝 was then used for the rest of imperial China's history.
Another example would be during the Han dynasty, under the reign of Liu Che 刘彻. Wei Qing 卫青 was an exceptional military commander and performed well in battles against the Xiongnu, thus Liu Che decided to reward him with the title of Grand General 大将军, the top commanding post for the military and one which had not been in used ever since the death of Han Xin 韩信. After that Wei Qing continued to achieve victories in battle, together with his nephew Huo Qubing 霍去病, and thus Liu Che added the title of Grand Marshal 大司马 on top of their existing titles (Grand General 大将军 and General of the Galloping Cavalry 骠骑将军 respectively). Thus the bar was raised higher and the top military post became Grand General serving as Grand Marshal 大司马大将军.
During the latter period of Han emperor Liu Ao 刘骜's reign, the title was shortened to only Grand Marshal 大司马, which freed up the title of Grand General for use. And so, after the short lived Xin dynasty caused by Wang Mang 王莽's reign, various other titles like Grand General of Building Authority 建威大将军 and Grand General of Eastern City 镇东大将军 cropped up. Although it regained some status during the three kingdoms period (Xianhou Dun 夏侯惇, Jiang Wei 姜维 and Zhu Ran 朱然 all held this post while being the top military commander), it completely out of favour after that, becoming one of just many other posts in the military command.
[sources: Records of the Grand Historian, Book of Han