Land tenure in Great Nortend

'Land tenure and property law in Great Nortend is a highly complex area of the law which arose out of the mediaeval systems of feudalism and grew into a distinctively Erbonian system. The basic framework under which the system of land tenure works is that of the relationship between lord and vassal, as well of that of an estate. A lord, such as the King, owns land outright as an allod, and may grant an estate in land to a vassal, known as a fee. Such a vassal may then grant the fee or part thereof to another vassal in a process known as subenfeoffment. This may under customary law occur any number of times; however, under the Statute of Subenfeoffments, 4 Peter II, a tenant of a fee may have a maximum of six lords.

Types of tenure

There are three main types of tenure: free, unfree and lease tenures. The main difference between the three form of tenures is explained below.

Free tenures

A free tenant, or freeholder, holds lands from his lord in return for fixed services or none at all, and for a determined but possibly unknown period of time. Fixed services are services which are determined and recorded as part of the title deed, and include such services as:

• to supply a certain number of soldiers (knight-service),
• to perform a certain amount of agricultural work (socage)
• to do a certain personal act for the lord (serjeanty)
• to pray for the soul of the grantor (frankalmoign).
• to pay a fixed rent (burgage)

The requirement that the estate be held for a determined but not necessarily known period of time means that it may normally be in one of the following forms:

• Fee simple
• Fee tail
• Fee for life
• Fee defeasible

Socage

Socage is the most common and most important form of free tenure, and is the main form of tenure in rural areas. It involves, historically, the service of providing labour to work on the lord's demesne at certain times during the year. Whilst this duty still exists, in many manors it has been commuted to either monetary payments, or payments of agricultural product. The majority of farmers in Great Nortend hold their farms under socage, and are liable to pay their lord a certain portion of their produce.

Tenures in socage are not freely alienable, and instead pass to heirs in accordance with primogeniture or by the terms of the grant. It may be, however, alienated to a third party with the consent of the lord and by paying a fine of alienation.

Knight-service

Knight-service is a form of free tenure where lands are granted in return for the grantee performing some form of military service to his lord. This has been altered by statute to be commuted to either service in the King's armies or navy, or service in the reserves. It may also be rendered in money, known as scutage. Knight-service is relatively uncommon, and new grants are limited to grants by the Crown.

They are not freely alienable, and instead pass to heirs in accordance with primogeniture or by the terms of the grant. It may be, however, alienated to a third party with the consent of the lord and by paying a fine of alienation.

Serjeanty

Serjenanty in its simplest is a form of free tenure where the grantee is bound to serve in person his lord in a specified manner or to render him certain goods, the former being termed grand serjeanty whilst the latter being termed petty serjeanty.

Services may include such varied services as driving the lord's carriage on certain days, rendering two white kid gloves annually, serving as cupbearer at feasts, providing the lord with his sword, rendering bacon to the lord, supporting the lord's stirrup, or supporting the lord's arm. It has thus often devolved into a ceremonial form of tenure, and the obligations are not usually overly onerous, although in one case, the manor of Gelling Fenterwood is held by the Esdrake family upon their service of weekly counting of the population of the deer in the Royal Forest.

Tenures by serjeanty are not freely alienable, and instead pass to heirs in accordance with primogeniture or by the terms of the grant. It may be, however, alienated to a third party with the consent of the lord and by paying a fine of alienation.

Frankalmoign

Frankalmoign is a form of free tenure by the Church of land in return for, usually, a requirement that the Church say prayers for the soul of the grantor. Frankalmoign has been restricted since the 15th century, and may only be granted with the approval of superior lords.

Burgage

Burgage is a form of free tenure held by burgesses in a borough from their lord in return for cash or monetary payment, or the rendering of professional or trade services. Unlike other forms of free tenure, it may be freely alienable or subenfeoffed as a whole.

Unfree tenure

Unfree tenants are tenants who are not personally free, and can be considered a form of indentured servitute by tenure. The main form existing in Great Nortend nowadays, is that of cottage. A cottar holds his lands at the will of the lord and the custom of the manor, and can be evicted or ejected for non-compliance with the lord's requests in accordance with the customs of the manor. Furthermore, an unfree tenant may not leave his lands or alienate his title without the permission of the lord. In effect, it forms a 'tenancy at will'.