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Knight Service
Knight-service was a form of feudal land tenure under which a knight held a fief or estate of land termed a knight's fee (''fee'' being synonymous with ''fief'') from an overlord conditional on him as a tenant performing military service for his overlord. History It is associated in its origin with that development in warfare which made the mailed horseman, armed with lance and sword, the most important factor in battle. It was long believed that knight-service was developed out of the liability, under the English system, of every five hides of land to provide one soldier in war. It is now held that, on the contrary, it was a novel system in England when it was introduced after the Conquest by the Normans, who relied essentially on their mounted knights, while the English fought on foot. It existed in Normandy where a knight held a fief termed a ''fief de haubert'', from the hauberk or coat of mail (Latin: ''lorica'') worn by knights. An allusion is made to this in the corona ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Feudal Land Tenure
Under the English feudal system several different forms of land tenure 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 In England'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, 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 th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mesne Lord
A mesne lord () was a lord in the feudal system who had vassals who held land from him, but who was himself the vassal of a higher lord. Owing to ''Quia Emptores'', the concept of a mesne lordship technically still exists today: the partitioning of the lord of the manor's estate among co-heirs creating the mesne lordships. In an English court of law in 1863 it was claimed that "the lord of the mesne manor pays a rent to a superior lord and that rent empowers him to receive chief rents from certain farms". A mesne lord did not hold land directly of the king, that is to say he was not a tenant-in-chief. His subinfeudated estate was called a "mesne estate" or '' Afterlehen'' in the Holy Roman Empire. Traditionally, he is a lord of the manor who holds land from a superior lord and who usually lets some of the land to a tenant. He was thus an intermediate or "middle" tenant, which status is reflected in the Old French word ''mesne'', in the modern -4; we might wonder whether ther ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pipe Roll Society
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 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 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 of the yearly audits performed by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Red Book Of The Exchequer
The Red Book of the Exchequer (''Liber Rubeus'' or ''Liber ruber Scaccarii'') is a 13th-century manuscript compilation of precedents and office memoranda of the English Exchequer. It contains additional entries and annotations down to the 18th century. It is now held at The National Archives, Kew, London. It takes its name from its red leather binding, which distinguishes it from the related and contemporary, but smaller, Black Book of the Exchequer. J. Horace Round wrote in 1898 that "second only in honour to Domesday Book itself, the "Liber Rubeus de Scaccario" has, for more than six centuries, held a foremost place among our national records. Prized by officials for its precedents, by antiquaries for its vast store of topographical and genealogical information, its well-thumbed pages have been scanned by twenty generations of students". Creation and content The early part of the Red Book was compiled in about 1230 by Alexander of Swerford (d. 1246), a senior Exchequer clerk ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Hearne (antiquarian)
Thomas Hearne or Hearn (Latin: ''Thomas Hearnius'', July 167810 June 1735) was an English diarist and prolific antiquary, particularly remembered for his published editions of many medieval English chronicles and other important historical texts. Life Hearne was born at Littlefield Green in the parish of White Waltham, Berkshire, the son of George Hearn, the parish clerk. Having received his early education from his father, he showed such taste for study that a wealthy neighbour, Francis Cherry of Shottesbrooke (c. 1665–1713), a celebrated nonjuror, interested himself in the boy, and sent him to the school at Bray "on purpose to learn the Latin tongue". Soon Cherry took him into his own house, and his education was continued at Bray until Easter 1696 when he matriculated at St Edmund Hall, Oxford. At the university, he attracted the attention of Dr John Mill (1645–1707), the principal of St Edmund Hall, who employed him to compare manuscripts and in other ways ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 ''An Act away the Court of Wards and Liveries, and Tenures in Capite, and by Knights-service, and Purveyance, and for settling a Revenue upon his Majesty in Lieu thereof''. Passed by the Convention Parliament in 1660, shortly after the English Restoration, the act replaced various types of military and religious service that tenants owed to the Crown with socage, and compensated the monarch with an annual fixed payment of £100,000 to be raised by means of a new tax on alcohol. ( Frankalmoin, copyhold, and certain aspects of grand serjeanty were excluded.) It completed a process that had begun in 1610 during the reign of James I with the proposal of the Great Contract. The act made constitutional gestures to reduce feudalism and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edward I Of England
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 1254 to 1306 ruled Duchy of Gascony, Gascony as Duke of Aquitaine in his capacity as a vassal of the French king. Before his accession to the throne, he was commonly referred to as the Lord Edward. The eldest son of Henry III of England, Henry III, Edward was involved from an early age in the political intrigues of his father's reign. In 1259, he briefly sided with a baronial reform movement, supporting the Provisions of Oxford. After reconciling with his father, he remained loyal throughout the subsequent armed conflict, known as the Second Barons' War. After the Battle of Lewes, Edward was held hostage by the rebellious barons, but escaped after a few months and defeated the baronial leader Simon de Montfort at the Battle of Evesham in 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry De Bracton
Henry of Bracton (c. 1210 – c. 1268), also known as Henry de Bracton, Henricus Bracton, Henry Bratton, and Henry Bretton, was an English cleric and jurist. He is famous now for his writings on law, particularly ''De legibus et consuetudinibus Angliæ'' ("On the Laws and Customs of England"), and his ideas on ''mens rea'' (criminal intent). According to Bracton, it was only through the examination of a combination of action and intention that the commission of a criminal act could be established. He also wrote on kingship, arguing that a ruler should be called king only if he obtained and exercised power in a lawful manner. In his writings, Bracton manages to set out coherently the law of the royal courts through his use of categories drawn from Roman law, thus incorporating into English law several developments of medieval Roman law. Life Plucknett describes Bracton in this way: "Two generations after Ranulf de Glanvill we come to the flower and crown of English jurispr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry III Of England
Henry III (1 October 1207 – 16 November 1272), also known as Henry of Winchester, was King of England, Lord of Ireland, and Duke of Aquitaine from 1216 until his death in 1272. The son of John, King of England, King John and Isabella of Angoulême, Henry assumed the throne when he was only nine in the middle of the First Barons' War. Cardinal Guala Bicchieri declared the war against the rebel barons to be a religious crusade and Henry's forces, led by William Marshal, defeated the rebels at the battles of Battle of Lincoln (1217), Lincoln and Battle of Sandwich (1217), Sandwich in 1217. Henry promised to abide by the Magna Carta#Great Charter of 1225, Great Charter of 1225, a later version of the 1215 Magna Carta, which limited royal power and protected the rights of the major barons. Henry's early reign was dominated first by William Marshal, and after his death in 1219 by the magnate Hubert de Burgh. In 1230, the King attempted to reconquer the Angevin Empire, provinces of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seisin
Seisin (or seizin) is a legal concept that denotes the right to legal possession of a thing, usually a fiefdom, fee, or an estate in land. It is similar, but legally separate from the idea of ownership. The term is traditionally used in the context of inheritance law in the form of "the son and heir of X has obtained seisin of his inheritance", and thus is a term primarily concerned with conveyancing. The person holding such estate is said to be "seized of it", a phrase which commonly appears in inquisition post mortem, inquisitions ''post mortem''. It has varying relevance in modern legal systems, with distinctions between Common law and Civil law (legal system), Civil law jurisdictions. Etymology Seisin comes from Middle English , , in the legal sense of . The Old French variations , , are from Low Latin , generally referred to the same source as Gothic language, Gothic , or the Old English , . The French phrase "le mort saisit le vif" ("the dead give seisin to the living") is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Book Of Fees
The ''Book of Fees'' is the colloquial title of a modern edition, transcript, rearrangement and enhancement of the medieval (Latin: 'Book of Fiefs') which is a listing of feudal landholdings or fief (Middle English ), compiled in about 1302, but from earlier records, for the use of the English Exchequer. Originally in two volumes of parchment, the ''Liber Feodorum'' is a collection of about 500 written brief notes made between 1198 and 1292 concerning fiefs held or in-chief, that is to say directly from the Crown. From an early date, the book comprising these volumes has been known informally as the ''Testa de Nevill'' (meaning 'Head of Nevill'), supposedly after an image on the cover of the volume of one of its two major source collections. The modern standard edition, known colloquially as "The Book of Fees" whose three volumes were published between 1920 and 1931, improves on two earlier 19th-century efforts at publishing a comprehensive and reliable modern edition of all ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
