The honour of Pontefract, also known as the feudal barony of Pontefract, was an English feudal barony. Its origins lie in the grant of a large, compact set of landholdings in Yorkshire, made between the Norman conquest of England in 1066 and the completion of the Domesday Survey in 1086. An expansive set of landholdings spanning sixty parishes and six wapentakes in Yorkshire, the honour was created primarily to serve a strategic, defensive function in a potentially hostile frontier zone. The first lord was Ilbert de Lacy, who built a castle at Pontefract which became the caput of the honour. Alongside the Yorkshire holdings, a smaller number of dispersed possessions elsewhere in England belonged to the honour.
After Lacy's death, his son succeeded him as lord before having the honour confiscated some time before c. 1116, after which it was regranted twice. Ilbert de Lacy's grandson recovered a two-thirds share in c. 1135, which passed through his heirs, then to a collateral branch in 1193; the final third share was reunited with the rest of the honour in 1205. In 1311, the honour was inherited by an heiress, Alice, who married Thomas, 2nd Earl of Lancaster. After the earl's failed rebellion in 1322, the honour was confiscated and entered a period of royal ownership which ended in 1348 with a grant to Thomas's great-nephew, Henry of Grosmont, 4th Earl (later 1st Duke) of Lancaster. His daughter and heiress Blanche brought it through marriage to John of Gaunt, who was also created Duke of Lancaster. After Gaunt died in 1399, his son and heir Henry of Bolingbroke was denied access to his Lancastrian inheritance (including the honour of Pontefract) by Richard II; Henry seized the throne (as Henry IV) and retook the lands which had belonged to his father, after which the honour formed part of the Duchy of Lancaster, which has ever since been private property of the English monarch.