Memory Property History

Front 1

Military Tenures

Back 1

• Knight Service: tenant by Knight Service was required to provide a specified number of met to fight for the King for 40 days each year.
• Grand Serganty: tenant provided services to ensure a splendid court life and pageantry. i.e., carrying royal banner, guarding royal treasure

Front 2

Economic Tenure

Back 2

• Also called Socage
• Some kind of service was reserved for the overlord to provide subsistence and maintenance.
o Could include: Money rent, 10 days of ploughing, keeping a bridge in repair, or delivering a dish of mushrooms fresh for the king’s breakfast in London.
o Also the memorable, to perform on Christmas Day every year “altogether, and at once, a leap, a puff, and a fart.”

Front 3

Religious Tenures

Back 3

• Service from the ecclesiastics
o Knight Service
o Saying Mass on Fridays
o Frankalmoign: to pray for the grantor’s soul

Front 4

Feudal Incidents

Back 4

• Duties and liabilities a Tenant owed his lord in addition to the Services (Tenures)
• Including:
o Homage and Fealty: tenant swore a binding oath to protect his lord
o Aids: A lord could demand aid from his tenants in a financial emergency; after Magna Carta:
 Ransoming of lord from captors
 Knighting of eldest son
 Marriage of eldest daughter
o Forfeiture: A tenant forfeited his land to the lord if:
 breached oath of loyalty
 refused to perform feudal services
 High Treason: King was entitled to seize land

Front 5

Statute Quia Emptores

Back 5

• Enacted in 1290
o Prohibited subinfeudation
o Established principle of free alienation
o Existing mense lordships tended to disappear and most land come to be held directly by the crown

Front 6

Seisin

Back 6

• Identifies the freeholder who is responsible to his land for the duty of service and incidents.
• Can be transferred by: 1) feeoffment or 2) inheritance
• No gaps in seisin; no springing/shifting of seisin

Front 7

Feeoffment (Livery of Seisin)

Back 7

• Ceremony to transfer seisin
• The grantor gives something symbolic (dirt, sticks) in exchange for grantee’s loyal pledge
• In a time where illiteracy was the norm, such a ceremony would allow the community to remember who now owned the land and thus prevent potential fights over ownership.

Front 8

Alienability

Back 8

• Transferability

Front 9

Escheat

Back 9

• When a person dies without heirs intestate, the property goes to the state

Front 10

Frankalmoign

Back 10

• The giving of lands to the church in exchange for performing church duties (like mass) or praying for the grantor’s soul.