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An overlord in the

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

feudal system Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was a combination of legal, economic, military, cultural, and political customs that flourished in medieval Europe from the 9th to 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structuring socie ...

was a lord of a manor who had

subinfeudated 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 ...

a particular manor,

estate Estate or The Estate may refer to: Law * Estate (law), a term in common law for a person's property, entitlements and obligations * Estates of the realm, a broad social category in the histories of certain countries. ** The Estates, representativ ...

fee A fee is the price one pays as remuneration for rights or services. Fees usually allow for overhead, wages, costs, and markup. Traditionally, professionals in the United Kingdom (and previously the Republic of Ireland) receive a fee in contrad ...

, to a tenant. The tenant thenceforth owed to the overlord one of a variety of services, usually

military service Military service is service by an individual or group in an army or other militia, air forces, and naval forces, whether as a chosen job (volunteer military, volunteer) or as a result of an involuntary draft (conscription). Few nations, such ...

serjeanty Under feudalism in France and England during the Middle Ages, tenure by serjeanty () was a form of tenure in return for a specified duty other than standard knight-service. Etymology The word comes from the French noun , itself from the Latin ...

, depending on which form of

tenure Tenure is a type of academic appointment that protects its holder from being fired or laid off except for cause, or under extraordinary circumstances such as financial exigency or program discontinuation. Academic tenure originated in the United ...

(i.e. feudal tenancy contract) the estate was held under. The highest overlord of all, or

lord paramount A lord paramount is a term of art in feudal law describing an overlord who holds his own fief from no superior lord. It thus describes a person who holds allodial title, owing no socage or feudal obligations such as military service. This was d ...

, was the

monarch A monarch () is a head of stateWebster's II New College Dictionary. "Monarch". Houghton Mifflin. Boston. 2001. p. 707. Life tenure, for life or until abdication, and therefore the head of state of a monarchy. A monarch may exercise the highest ...

, who due to his ancestor

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 ...

's personal conquest of the

Kingdom of England The Kingdom of England was a sovereign state on the island of Great Britain from the late 9th century, when it was unified from various Heptarchy, Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, until 1 May 1707, when it united with Kingdom of Scotland, Scotland to f ...

, ''owned'' by inheritance from him all the land in England under

allodial title Allodial title constitutes ownership of real property (land, buildings, and fixtures) that is independent of any superior landlord. Allodial title is related to the concept of land held "in allodium", or land ownership by occupancy and defense ...

and had no superior overlord, "holding from God and his sword", although certain monarchs, notably King John (1199–1216) purported to grant the Kingdom of England to

Pope Innocent III Pope Innocent III (; born Lotario dei Conti di Segni; 22 February 1161 – 16 July 1216) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 8 January 1198 until his death on 16 July 1216. Pope Innocent was one of the most power ...

, who would thus have become overlord to English monarchs. A paramount lord may then be seen to occupy the

apex The apex is the highest point of something. The word may also refer to: Arts and media Fictional entities * Apex (comics) A-Bomb Abomination Absorbing Man Abraxas Abyss Abyss is the name of two characters appearing in Ameri ...

of the feudal

pyramid A pyramid () is a structure whose visible surfaces are triangular in broad outline and converge toward the top, making the appearance roughly a pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid can be of any polygon shape, such as trian ...

, or the root of the feudal tree, and such allodial title is also termed "radical title" (from Latin ''radix'', root), "ultimate title" and "final title".

immediately set about granting tenancies on his newly won lands, in accordance with feudal principles. The monarch's immediate tenants were 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 ...

, usually military magnates, who held the highest status in feudal society below the monarch. The tenants-in-chief usually held multiple manors or other estates from the monarch, often as

feudal barons A feudal baron is a vassal holding a heritable fief called a ''barony'', comprising a specific portion of land, granted by an overlord in return for allegiance and service. Following the end of European feudalism, feudal baronies have largely bee ...

(or "barons by tenure") who owed their royal overlord an enhanced and onerous form of military service, and subinfeudated most to tenants, generally their own

knight A knight is a person granted an honorary title of a knighthood by a head of state (including the pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church, or the country, especially in a military capacity. The concept of a knighthood ...

s or military followers, keeping only a few in

demesne A demesne ( ) or domain was all the land retained and managed by a lord of the manor under the feudal system for his own use, occupation, or support. This distinguished it from land subinfeudation, sub-enfeoffed by him to others as sub-tenants. ...

. This created a

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 partitionin ...

– tenant relationship. The knights in turn subinfeudated to their own tenants, creating a further subsidiary mesne lord – tenant relationship. Over the centuries for any single estate the process was in practice repeated numerous times. In early times, following the

Norman Conquest of England 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 ...

of 1066 and the establishment of feudalism, land was usually transferred by subinfeudation, rarely by alienation (i.e. sale), which latter in the case of tenants-in-chief required royal licence, and the holder of an estate at any particular time, in order to gain secure

, and if challenged by another claimant, needed to prove "devolution of title" evidenced by legal deeds or

muniment A muniment or muniment of title is a legal term for a document, title deed or other evidence, that indicates ownership of an asset. The word is derived from the Latin noun ''munimentum'', meaning a "fortification, bulwark, defence or protection". ...

s back up the chain of subinfeudations to a holder whose title was beyond doubt, for example one who had received the estate as a grant by royal charter witnessed and sealed by substantial persons. Although

feudal land tenure in England 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-fr ...

was abolished by 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 ' ...

, in modern English

conveyancing In law, conveyancing is the transfer of legal title of real property from one person to another, or the granting of an encumbrance such as a mortgage or a lien. A typical conveyancing transaction has two major phases: the exchange of contract ...

law the need to prove devolution of title persisted until recent times, due to a "

legal fiction A legal fiction is a construct used in the law where a thing is taken to be true, which is not in fact true, in order to achieve an outcome. Legal fictions can be employed by the courts or found in legislation. Legal fictions are different from ...

" (grounded in reality) that all land titles were held by the monarch's subjects as a result of a royal grant. Proving devolution of title is no longer necessary since the creation of the

land registry Land registration is any of various systems by which matters concerning ownership, possession, or other rights in land are formally recorded (usually with a government agency or department) to provide evidence of title, facilitate transactions, ...

. There is a requirement to compulsorily register all land transactions on this governmental record, which registration provides a virtually unchallengeable and perfectly secure title of ownership.

Names

Overlords are also sometimes known as lords, feudal lords, or chief lords.

Process of creation

An overlordship came into existence by the process of the lord of the manor granting

seizin 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 the

concerned to his prospective tenant and receiving from him homage and

fealty An oath of fealty, from the Latin (faithfulness), is a pledge of allegiance of one person to another. Definition In medieval Europe, the swearing of fealty took the form of an oath made by a vassal, or subordinate, to his lord. "Fealty" also r ...

, the main elements of the infeudation and

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 ...

process.

Rights

An overlord had various rights under the feudal system, including receipt of either

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 ...

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 ...

on the succession of the tenant's heir. Also the right of

escheat Escheat () is a common law doctrine that transfers the real property of a person who has died without heirs to the crown or state. It serves to ensure that property is not left in "limbo" without recognized ownership. It originally applied t ...

, namely to receive back seizin of the estate on the death of the tenant without a legal heir (transfers of estates to third parties by testaments or wills were not part of the early feudal system). The right to the loyalty of his tenant was central to the feudal contract and was enshrined in the infeudation process in which the tenant swore loyalty to the overlord. In the event of disloyalty the feudal contract would be broken and the estate would become

forfeit Forfeit or forfeiture may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Forfeit'', a 2007 thriller film starring Billy Burke * "Forfeit", a song by Chevelle from '' Wonder What's Next'' * '' Forfeit/Fortune'', a 2008 album by Crooked Fingers ...

and return to the overlord. This is most commonly encountered in the case of

treason Treason is the crime of attacking a state (polity), state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to Coup d'état, overthrow its government, spy ...

where lands became forfeit to the monarch as paramount lord.

Obligations

The overlord was bound to protect his tenant, a valuable right for the latter in the days before the existence of police forces and universal access to royal justice, and when armed bands of robbers roamed the countryside. This protection extended also to sheltering his tenant from the arbitrary and predatory acts of other powerful local magnates.

Modern vestiges

In the language of English law of

landlord A landlord is the owner of property such as a house, apartment, condominium, land, or real estate that is rented or leased to an individual or business, known as a tenant (also called a ''lessee'' or ''renter''). The term landlord appli ...

and tenant the concept of the feudal overlord persists. Furthermore, in England today in the case of a land-owner dying intestate and without legal heirs, just as in the feudal age, his estate effectively

s and reverts to the overlord, but in the form of the paramount lord,

The Crown The Crown is a political concept used in Commonwealth realms. Depending on the context used, it generally refers to the entirety of the State (polity), state (or in federal realms, the relevant level of government in that state), the executive ...

, and is disposed of by the Crown Estate. In Cornwall today land is still in theory held from the Duke of Cornwall as lord paramount. In the case of English land escheating situated within the

Duchy of Lancaster The Duchy of Lancaster is an estate of the British sovereign. The estate has its origins in the lands held by the medieval Dukes of Lancaster, which came under the direct control of the monarch when Henry Bolingbroke, the then duke of Lancast ...

or the

Duchy of Cornwall A duchy, also called a dukedom, is a country, territory, fief, or domain ruled by a duke or duchess, a ruler hierarchically second to the king or queen in Western European tradition. There once existed an important difference between "sovereign ...

, it reverts to the overlords the Duke of Lancaster (the monarch) and the Duke of Cornwall (the monarch's eldest son),Philip Hosking possibly the only two surviving quasi-paramount feudal lords surviving in England other than the monarch.

Names

Process of creation

Rights

Obligations

Modern vestiges

References

Further reading