Under the English feudal system several different forms of

land tenure In Common law#History, common law systems, land tenure, from the French verb "" means "to hold", is the legal regime in which land "owned" by an individual is possessed by someone else who is said to "hold" the land, based on an agreement betw ...

existed, each effectively a contract with differing rights and duties attached thereto. Such tenures could be either free-hold if they were hereditable or perpetual or non-free if they terminated on the tenant's death or at an earlier specified period.

High medieval period

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

's ancient past large parts of the realm were unoccupied and owned as allodial titles: the landowners simply cooperated with the king out of a mutual interest instead of legal obligation. It was not until the

Norman Conquest The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Normans, Norman, French people, French, Flemish people, Flemish, and Bretons, Breton troops, all led by the Du ...

, when

William the Conqueror 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 D ...

declared himself to be the sole allodial owner of the entire realm, that land tenures changed drastically. In William's kingdom the common exchange and sale of land became restricted and all landholders were made to provide a service to their lord ("'' no land without a lord''").

Norman reforms

William stripped the land from those who opposed him and redistributed it among his followers. He introduced a new type of feudalism, in which obligation extended right down through the hierarchy, a model informed by the military system.

Barony and knight-service

The

tenants-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 ...

held their land by the tenure of barony, which required the tenant to provide a number of knights for their liege for 40 days per annum. After the served days, the liege was obliged either to begin paying the knights, or to dismiss them. However, tenants who held their land by the tenure of knight-service were not permitted to pass their lands to the heir automatically, but were required to obtain the lord's approval. The system failed because the assessment of knight's fees became impossible to maintain. A few estates retained the same wealth and population as when first enfeoffed, with the result that the lord provided only a small number of the knights whom he was actually able to muster. Another issue was the practice of

subinfeudation In English law, subinfeudation is the practice by which tenants, holding land under the king or other superior lord, carved out new and distinct tenures in their turn by sub-letting or alienating a part of their lands. The tenants were termed ...

, by which the subtenants were able to alienate the land to tenants of their own. This became unpopular among the superior lords, and was banned by

Edward I Edward I (17/18 June 1239 – 7 July 1307), also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots (Latin: Malleus Scotorum), was King of England from 1272 to 1307. Concurrently, he was Lord of Ireland, and from 125 ...

in his edict ''

Quia Emptores is a statute passed by the Parliament of England in 1290 during the reign of Edward I of England, Edward I that prevented Tenement (law), tenants from Alienation (property law), alienating (transferring) their lands to others by subinfeudati ...

''. In compensation, the sale of properties was made legal.

Late medieval period

During the course of the

late medieval period The late Middle Ages or late medieval period was the Periodization, period of History of Europe, European history lasting from 1300 to 1500 AD. The late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the early modern period ( ...

, knight-service came to be replaced by the tenure of

scutage Scutage was a medieval English tax levied on holders of a knight's fee under the feudal land tenure of knight-service. Under feudalism the king, through his vassals, provided land to knights for their support. The knights owed the king militar ...

, under which tenants paid tax assessed according to their knight's fee, instead of providing knights. Before the mid-13th century the fiefdoms had not been heritable owing to the uncertainty of whether the heir of the tenant would be capable of providing the required knight-service. As scutage replaced knight-service, that question fell outside consideration. Heirs were therefore able to succeed fiefs in exchange for the payment of a type of inheritance tax. The

Tenures Abolition Act 1660 The Tenures Abolition Act 1660 ( 12 Cha. 2. c. 24), sometimes known as the Statute of Tenures, was an act of the Parliament of England which changed the nature of several types of feudal land tenure in England. The long title of the act was ' ...

declared that all land was to be held by

socage Socage () was one of the feudal duties and land tenure forms in the English feudal system. It eventually evolved into the freehold tenure called "free and common socage", which did not involve feudal duties. Farmers held land in exchange for ...

tenure, ending the feudal tenure.

References

{{Short description, Aspect of Medieval English law Feudal duties Feudalism in England Real property law English property law Medieval English law Land tenure