Toll and team (also spelled ''thol and theam'') were related privileges granted by the

Crown A crown is a traditional form of head adornment, or hat, worn by monarchs as a symbol of their power and dignity. A crown is often, by extension, a symbol of the monarch's government or items endorsed by it. The word itself is used, parti ...

to landowners under

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...

and Anglo-Norman law. First known from a charter of around 1023, the privileges usually appeared as part of a standard formula in charters granting privileges to estate-holders, along the lines of "with sac and soc, toll and team, infangthief and outfangthief" and so on. ''Toll'' was the right granted to a landowner to impose a payment on the sale or passage of goods or cattle on his lands, or alternatively to be exempt from the tolls of others. ''Team'' was originally a grant of jurisdiction, allowing the holding of a court to judge people accused of wrongful possession of goods or cattle, or granting the right to obtain the profits from such a court. The term has the literal meaning in

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

of "line", referring to the tracing of a line of ownership. By the 12th century, however, the original meaning had largely been forgotten as the institution of team had fallen into obsolescence. It continued to be used as part of the standard formula of rights in charters but was given various alternative meanings by legal writers.

References

{{reflist Anglo-Saxon law Medieval law English legal terminology

See also

References