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Feudal Relief
{{Short description, Form of taxation under feudalism Feudal relief was a one-off "fine" or form of taxation payable to an overlord by the heir of a feudal tenant to license him to take possession of his fief, i.e. an estate-in-land, by inheritance. It is comparable to a death duty or inheritance tax. The equivalent duty at the lower levels of the feudal hierarchy was heriot (in England) or ''le droit du meilleur catel'' (in France). Etymology The word relief comes from the Latin verb ''levo'', to raise, lift up, elevate, with the addition of the Latin inseparable adverbial particle ''re-'', which has three distinct meanings: back, against and again. The Latin composite verb ''relevo'' results. The term used in mediaeval Latin charters is ''Relevius''. The payment thus obtains an heir's "relief" by his being "re-elevated" or "lifted-up again" into the place of honour and privilege formerly occupied by his predecessor. Rationale As fiefs were originally granted by William the Con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fief
A fief (; ) was a central element in medieval contracts based on feudal law. It consisted of a form of property holding or other rights granted by an overlord to a vassal, who held it in fealty or "in fee" in return for a form of feudal allegiance, services or payments. The fees were often lands, land revenue or revenue-producing real property like a watermill, held in feudal land tenure: these are typically known as fiefs or fiefdoms. However, not only land but anything of value could be held in fee, including governmental office, rights of exploitation such as hunting, fishing or felling trees, monopolies in trade, money rents and tax farms. There never existed a standard feudal system, nor did there exist only one type of fief. Over the ages, depending on the region, there was a broad variety of customs using the same basic legal principles in many variations. Terminology In ancient Rome, a " benefice" (from the Latin noun , meaning "benefit") was a gift of land () f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Estate (law)
In common law, an estate is a living or deceased person's net worth. It is the sum of a person's assets – the legal rights, interests, and entitlements to property of any kind – less all liabilities at a given time. The issue is of special legal significance on a question of bankruptcy and death of the person. (See inheritance.) Depending on the particular context, the term is also used in reference to an estate in land or of a particular kind of property (such as real estate or personal estate). The term is also used to refer to the sum of a person's assets only. The equivalent in civil law legal systems is patrimony. Bankruptcy Under United States bankruptcy law, a person's estate consists of all assets or property of any kind available for distribution to creditors. However, some assets are recognized as exempt to allow a person significant resources to restart their financial life. In the United States, asset exemptions depend on various factors, inclu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Inheritance Tax
International tax law distinguishes between an estate tax and an inheritance tax. An inheritance tax is a tax paid by a person who inherits money or property of a person who has died, whereas an estate tax is a levy on the estate (money and property) of a person who has died. However, this distinction is not always observed; for example, the UK's "inheritance tax" is a tax on the assets of the deceased, and strictly speaking is therefore an estate tax. Inheritance taxes vary widely between countries. History There was a steep increase in the number of countries that implemented inheritance taxes throughout the 19th and early 20th century. From 1960 onwards, inheritance taxes declined in prevalence as numerous countries repealed theirs. For historical reasons, the term "death duty" is still used colloquially (though not legally) in the UK and some Commonwealth countries. The estate tax in the United States is sometimes referred as "death tax". Other taxation applied to inherita ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heriot
Heriot, from Old English ''heregeat'' ("war-gear"), was originally a death-duty in late Anglo-Saxon England, which required that at death, a nobleman provided to his king a given set of military equipment, often including horses, swords, shields, spears and helmets. It later developed into a kind of tenurial feudal relief due from villeins. The equivalent term in French was ''droit du meilleur catel''. Etymology The word derives from Old English ''here-geatwa'', meaning the arms and equipment (''geatwa'') of a soldier or army (''here''). History An example of heriot was the right of a lord in feudal Europe to seize a serf's best horse, clothing, or both, upon his death. It arose from the tradition of the lord lending a serf a horse or armour or weapons to fight so that when the serf died the lord would rightfully reclaim his property. In England, heriot is first mentioned in the wills of West-Saxon nobles in the mid-tenth century, such as that of Æthelmær the Stout. Large be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William I Of England
William the Conqueror (Bates ''William the Conqueror'' p. 33– 9 September 1087), sometimes called William the Bastard, was the first Norman king of England (as William I), reigning from 1066 until his death. A descendant of Rollo, he was Duke of Normandy (as William II) from 1035 onward. By 1060, following a long struggle, his hold on Normandy was secure. In 1066, following the death of Edward the Confessor, William invaded England, leading a Franco-Norman army to victory over the Anglo-Saxon forces of Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings, and suppressed subsequent English revolts in what has become known as the Norman Conquest. The rest of his life was marked by struggles to consolidate his hold over England and his continental lands, and by difficulties with his eldest son, Robert Curthose. William was the son of the unmarried Duke Robert I of Normandy and his mistress Herleva. His illegitimate status and youth caused some difficulties for him after he succee ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pre-emption Right
A pre-emption right, right of pre-emption, or first option to buy is a contractual right to acquire certain property newly coming into existence before it can be offered to any other person or entity. It comes from the Latin verb ''emo, emere, emi, emptum'', to buy or purchase, plus the inseparable preposition ''pre'', before. A right to acquire existing property in preference to any other person is usually referred to as a ''right of first refusal''. Company shares In practice, the most common form of pre-emption right is the right of existing shareholders to acquire new shares issued by a company in a rights issue, usually a public offering. In this context, the pre-emptive right is also called subscription right or subscription privilege. It is the right but not the obligation of existing shareholders to buy the new shares before they are offered to the public. In that way, existing shareholders can maintain their proportional ownership of the company and thus prevent stock dil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pipe Roll
The Pipe rolls, sometimes called the Great rollsBrown ''Governance'' pp. 54–56 or the Great Rolls of the Pipe, are a collection of financial records maintained by the English Exchequer, or HM Treasury, Treasury, and its successors, as well as the Exchequer of Ireland. The earliest date from the 12th century, and the series extends, mostly complete, from then until 1833.Chrimes ''Administrative History'' pp. 62–63 They form the oldest continuous series of records concerning English governance kept by the English, British, Irish and United Kingdom governments, covering a span of about 700 years. The early medieval ones are especially useful for historical study, as they are some of the earliest financial records available from the Middle Ages. A similar set of records was developed for Duchy of Normandy, Normandy, which was ruled by the English kings from 1066 to 1205, but the Norman Pipe rolls have not survived in a continuous series like the English. They were the records o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Treasury
A treasury is either *A government department related to finance and taxation, a finance ministry; in a business context, corporate treasury. *A place or location where treasure, such as currency or precious items are kept. These can be state or royal property, church treasure or in private ownership. The head of a treasury is typically known as a treasurer. This position may not necessarily have the final control over the actions of the treasury, particularly if they are not an elected representative. The adjective for a treasury is normally treasurial. The adjective "tresorial" can also be used, but this normally means pertaining to a ''treasurer''. History The earliest found artefacts made of silver and gold are from Lake Varna in Bulgaria dated 4250–4000 BC, the earliest of copper are dated 9000–7000 BC. The Greek term ''thêsauros'' (treasury) was first used in Classical times to describe the votive buildings erected to house gifts to the gods, such as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English Feudal Baronies
In the kingdom of England, a feudal barony or barony by tenure was the highest degree of feudal land tenure, namely ''per baroniam'' (Latin for "by barony"), under which the land-holder owed the service of being one of the king's barons. The duties owed by and the privileges granted to feudal barons are not exactly defined, but they involved the duty of providing soldiers to the royal feudal army on demand by the king, and the privilege of attendance at the king's feudal court, the ''Magnum Concilium'', the precursor of parliament. If the estate-in-land held by barony contained a significant castle as its '' caput baroniae'' and if it was especially large – consisting of more than about 20 knight's fees (each loosely equivalent to a manor) – then it was termed an honour. The typical honour had properties scattered over several shires, intermingled with the properties of others. This was a specific policy of the Norman kings, to avoid establishing any one area under the co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magna Carta
(Medieval Latin for "Great Charter"), sometimes spelled Magna Charta, is a royal charter of rights agreed to by King John of England at Runnymede, near Windsor, on 15 June 1215. First drafted by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal Stephen Langton, to make peace between the unpopular king and a group of rebel barons who demanded that the King confirm the Charter of Liberties, it promised the protection of church rights, protection for the barons from illegal imprisonment, access to swift and impartial justice, and limitations on feudal payments to the Crown, to be implemented through a council of 25 barons. Neither side stood by their commitments, and the charter was annulled by Pope Innocent III, leading to the First Barons' War. After John's death, the regency government of his young son, Henry III, reissued the document in 1216, stripped of some of its more radical content, in an unsuccessful bid to build political support for their cause. At the end of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tenant-in-chief
In medieval and early modern Europe, a tenant-in-chief (or vassal-in-chief) was a person who held his lands under various forms of feudal land tenure directly from the king or territorial prince to whom he did homage, as opposed to holding them from another nobleman or senior member of the clergy. The tenure was one which denoted great honour, but also carried heavy responsibilities. The tenants-in-chief were originally responsible for providing knights and soldiers for the king's feudal army. Terminology The Latin term was ''tenens in capite''. Other names for tenant-in-chief were "captal" or baron, although the latter term evolved in meaning. For example, the term "baron" was used in the '' Cartae Baronum'' of 1166, a return of all tenants-in-chief in England. At that time the term was understood to mean the "king's barons", or "king's men", because baron could still have a broader meaning. Originally, for example in Domesday Book (1086), there was a small number of powerful ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Knight's Fee
In feudal Anglo-Norman England and Ireland, a knight's fee was a unit measure of land deemed sufficient to support a knight. It would not only provide sustenance for himself, his family, and servants, but also the means to furnish himself and his retinue with horses and armour to fight for his overlord in battle. It was effectively the size of a fief (or "fee" which is synonymous with "fief") sufficient to support one knight in the ongoing performance of his feudal duties (knight-service). A knight's fee cannot be stated as a standard number of acres, as the required acreage to produce a given crop or revenue would vary depending on many factors, including its location, the richness of its soil and the local climate, as well as the presence of other exploitable resources such as a fishing weir, quarries of rock, or mines of minerals. If a knight's fee is deemed coterminous with a manor, an average size would be between 1,000 and 5,000 acres, of which much in early times was s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
