This study combines information on the titles of Western Zhou feudal lineages as found on bronze inscriptions and in the textual record, and based on both detailed and general views it derives a better understanding of the pre-Qin system of conferring posthumous titles and its development. At the detail level, the circumstances of using posthumous titles are clarified by a careful study of the dating of bronze inscriptions. At the general level, the sequence by which the different clans came to accept the system of posthumous titles permits us to clarify how the system of conferring posthumous titles was regularized and the process by which it was advanced and accepted.