Land tenure in England
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Even before the
Most of these
Land was granted in return for various "services" and "incidents". A service was an obligation on the part of the tenant owed to the landlord. The most important were payment of rent (
Incidents, on the other hand, were rights conferred on the lord over the tenant's land or the tenant's person that arose in certain circumstances, most commonly on the death of the tenant. An important incident was that of escheat, whereby the land of the tenant by knight service would escheat to the Crown in the event either of there being no heirs, or the knight's being convicted of a felony.
Spatial fragmentation of proprietary interests
The concept of land tenure has been described as a "spatial fragmentation of proprietary interests in land". No one person could claim absolute ownership of a parcel of land, except the Crown. Thus the modern concept of "ownership" is not helpful in explaining the complexity of the distribution of rights. In relation to a particular piece of land, a number of people had rights: first, the tenant in demesne with possessory rights; second the mesne lord to whom the tenant owed services; third, a tenant in chief to whom the mesne lord owed services; and finally the Crown who received services directly from the tenant in chief.
Decline of land tenure
The feudal system in England gradually became more and more complex until eventually the process became cumbrous and services difficult to enforce. As a result, the statute of Quia Emptores was passed in 1290 to replace subinfeudation with substitution, so the subordinate tenant transferred their tenure rather than creating a new subordinate tenure. As tenancies came to an end, the number of layers in the feudal pyramid was reduced. The Tenures Abolition Act 1660 abolished knight service, converting all free tenures to socage tenure.
Quia Emptores and its equivalents do not apply to leases and life estates. In essence, lease of land to a tenant is a form of subinfeudation (unless the lease is granted by the Crown).
Surveys of land ownership
The main two official surveys undertaken in the British Isles with the aim of identifying owners of land and land values are the Domesday Book of 1086 and the Return of Owners of Land, 1873.
See also
Further reading
- ISBN 978-0-00-832167-3.
- Standing, Guy (2019). Plunder of the Commons: A Manifesto for Sharing Public Wealth. London: Pelican. ISBN 978-0-141-99062-0.
- Cahill, Kevin (2002). Who Owns Britain?. Canongate. ISBN 978-1841953106.
- Shoard, Marion (1997). This Land is Our Land. Gaia Books. ISBN 1-85675-064-7.
- Shoard, Marion (1980). The Theft of the Countryside. Maurice Temple Smith. ISBN 0-85117-200-8.
- Marks, Mary A. M. (1908). Landholding in England: Considered in Relation to Poverty. London: A. C. Fifield.
References
- Sir ISBN 0-406-53101-3