Tenures Abolition Act 1660

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Tenures Abolition Act 1660
Wards and Liveries Act 1541
Amended by
Status: Amended
Text of statute as originally enacted
Revised text of statute as amended

The Tenures Abolition Act 1660 (

Knights-service, and Purveyance
, and for settling a Revenue upon his Majesty in Lieu thereof.

Passed by the

James I with the proposal of the Great Contract
.

The act made constitutional gestures to reduce feudalism and removed the monarch's right to demand participation of certain subjects in the Army. By abolishing feudal obligations of those holding those feudal tenures other than by socage, such as by a knight's fee, it standardized most feudal tenancies of the aristocracy and gentry. The act converted more of their tenures into ones which demanded nil or negligible impositions to the Crown. While socage usually implied rent to be payable to the monarch, no rent was paid in the form of free and common socage as interpreted by the courts. Instead the act introduced and appointed collection offices and courts to administer a new form of taxation, called excise. Excise duty imposed taxation on the general public to provide an income for the monarch, its ministers and civil servants, to replace these relatively common feudal tenures among the landed classes.

Provisions

Section 3 of the act repealed the

33 Hen. 8. c. 22), thereby abolishing the Court of Wards and Liveries, established in 1540, which had been responsible for revenue collection under the feudal tenure system. It was also the first act (under its section 14) to impose an excise duty on tea,[1] as well as on coffee, sherbet and chocolate
; the duty was placed on the manufactured beverage, and not the raw tea or coffee, treating it in much the same way as beer or spirits.

The act also let any father, by last will and testament, designate a guardian for his children. The rights of this guardian superseded those of the children's mother.[2][page needed][3] Sarah Abramowicz notes the ironic erosion of the father's parental rights after the 1660 act.[4]

Legacy

Section 22 of the act was repealed from 10 May 1750 by section 12 of the

23 Geo. 2
. c. 26).

The act was partly in force in the United Kingdom at the end of 2010,[5] though only section 4:

And that all tenures hereafter to be created by the Kings Majestie his Heires or Successors upon any gifts or grants of any Mannours Lands Tenements or Hereditaments of any Estate of Inheritance at the common Law shall be in free and common Soccage, and shall be adjudged to be in free and common Soccage onely, and not by Knight service or in Capite, and shall be discharged of all Wardship value and forfeiture of Marriage Livery Primer-Seizin Ouster le main Aide pur[d] faier fitz Chivalier[e] & pur file marrier,[f] Any Law Statute or reservation to the contrary thereof any wise notwithstanding.

Legacy

Section seven of the act from "tenures in franke almoigne " to " nor to take away." was repealed by section 56 of, and part I of the second schedule to, the

15 & 16 Geo. 5
. c. 23).

Notes

  1. short title was authorised by section 5 of, and schedule 2 to, the Statute Law Revision Act 1948. Due to the repeal of those provisions, it is now authorised by section 19(2) of the Interpretation Act 1978
    .
  2. ^ These words are printed against this act in the second column of schedule 2 to the Statute Law Revision Act 1948, which is headed "Title".
  3. ^ Start of session.
  4. ^ pur means for or through as in pur autre vie, for the life[span] of another
  5. ^ the son of a knight
  6. ^ "line married" i.e. married lineage

References

  1. ^ Noorthouck, John (1773). "From the Restoration to the Fire". A New History of London: Including Westminster and Southwark. Vol. 1. London: R Baldwin. pp. 210–230. Retrieved 7 March 2007 – via British History Online.
  2. ISBN 1-85941-237-8
    .
  3. ISBN 1-85742-290-2
    .
  4. ^ Abramowicz, Sarah. “English Child Custody Law, 1660-1839: The Origins of Judicial Intervention in Paternal Custody.” Columbia Law Review, vol. 99, no. 5, 1999, pp. 1344–92. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1123459. Retrieved 24 Apr. 2023.
  5. ISBN 978-0-11-840509-6
    . Part I. Page 63, read with pages viii and x.

Bibliography

Text of the Tenures Abolition Act 1660 as in force today (including any amendments) within the United Kingdom, from legislation.gov.uk.

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