This article includes a list of references, related reading, or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please help improve this article by introducing more precise citations.(September 2008) (Learn how and when to remove this message)
Main article: Land tenure
Even before the Norman Conquest, there was a strong tradition of landholding in Anglo-Saxon law. When William the Conqueror asserted sovereignty over England in 1066, he confiscated the property of the recalcitrant English landowners. Over the next dozen years, he granted land to his lords and to the dispossessed Englishmen, or affirmed their existing land holdings, in exchange for fealty and promises of military and other services. At the time of the Domesday Book, all land in England was held by someone, and from that time there has been no allodial land in England. In order to legitimise the notion of the Crown's paramount lordship, a legal fiction—that all land titles were held by the King's subjects as a result of a royal grant—was adopted.
Most of these tenants-in-chief had considerable land holdings and proceeded to grant parts of their land to their subordinates. This constant process of granting new tenures was known as subinfeudation. It created a complicated pyramid of feudal relationships. (see also Lord of the manor). At the bottom of the feudal pyramid were the tenants who lived on and worked the land (called the tenants in demesne and also the tenant paravail). In the middle were the lords who had no direct relationship with the King, or with the land in question - referred to as mesne lords.
Land was granted in return for various "services" and "incidents". A service was an obligation on the part of the tenant owed to the landlord. The most important were payment of rent (socage tenure), military service (Knight-service), the performance of some form of religious service (frankalmoin) and personal/official service, including in times of war (serjeanty tenure).
Incidents, on the other hand, were rights conferred on the lord over the tenant's land or the tenant's person that arose in certain circumstances, most commonly on the death of the tenant. An important incident was that of escheat, whereby the land of the tenant by knight service would escheat to the Crown in the event either of there being no heirs, or the knight's being convicted of a felony.
and 26 Related for: Land tenure in England information
In common law systems, landtenure, from the French verb "tenir" means "to hold", is the legal regime in which land "owned" by an individual is possessed...
different forms of landtenure existed, each effectively a contract with differing rights and duties attached thereto. Such tenures could be either free-hold...
formal structure based on landtenure. As a military defence and socio-economic paradigm designed to direct the wealth of the land to the king while it levied...
form of customary land ownership common from the Late Middle Ages into modern times inEngland. The name for this type of landtenure is derived from the...
relationship formed the basis of landholding, known as feudal tenure, whereby the seizin vested in the tenant (the vassal) was so similar to actual possession...
watermill, held in feudal landtenure: these are typically known as fiefs or fiefdoms. However, not only land but anything of value could be held in fee, including...
one of the feudal duties and landtenure forms in the English feudal system. It eventually evolved into the freehold tenure called "free and common socage"...
without a specific tenure (e.g. National Park or State Forest) are referred to as Crown land or State Land, which is described as being held in the "right of...
some sort of service to the lord. There were many varieties of feudal landtenure, consisting of military and non-military service. The obligations and...
Under feudalism in France and England during the Middle Ages, tenure by serjeanty (/ˈsɑːrdʒənti/) was a form of tenurein return for a specified duty...
below the British peerage (or "titled nobility") in social status. Nevertheless, their economic base inland was often similar, and some of the landed gentry...
Land agent may be used in at least three different contexts. Traditionally, a land agent was a managerial employee who conducted the business affairs of...
Historically, the feudal barons of England were the king's tenants-in-chief, that is to say men who held land by feudal tenure directly from the king as their...
inland from one individual to another.[citation needed] In feudal England a feoffment could only be made of a fee (or "fief"), which is an estate in...
knights in exchange for certain privileges, usually including land held as a tenant or fief. The term is also applied to similar arrangements in other feudal...
basic unit of land ownership within the baronial system. Initially inEngland the feudal "baronial" system considered all those who held land directly from...
were appointed by the king, as his tenants-in-chief – that is to say people who held land by feudal tenure directly from the king as their sole overlord...
substantial persons. Although feudal landtenureinEngland was abolished by the Tenures Abolition Act 1660, in modern English conveyancing law the need...
entertain fans Feudal service, see Feudal landtenureinEngland Funeral or memorial service Military service, serving in a country's armed forces Public service...
In the kingdom of England, a feudal barony or barony by tenure was the highest degree of feudal landtenure, namely per baroniam (Latin for "by barony")...
the feudal system inEngland, a feoffee (/fɛˈfiː, fiːˈfiː/) is a trustee who holds a fief (or "fee"), that is to say an estate inland, for the use of a...
of the manor had jurisdiction, primarily torts, local contracts and landtenure, and their powers only extended to those who lived within the lands of...
historians to characterise the form feudalism took in the Late Middle Ages, primarily inEnglandin the late Middle Ages. Its distinctive feature is that...