Person holding land directly of the king
In
medieval
and
early modern Europe
, a
tenant-in-chief
(or
vassal-in-chief
) was a person who held his lands under various forms of
feudal land tenure
directly from the king or territorial prince to whom he did
homage
, as opposed to holding them from another nobleman or senior member of the
clergy
.
[1]
[2]
The tenure was one which denoted great honour, but also carried heavy responsibilities. The tenants-in-chief were originally responsible for providing knights and soldiers for the king's feudal army.
[3]
Terminology
[
edit
]
The
Latin
term was
tenens in
capite
.
[4]
[a]
Other names for tenant-in-chief were "
captal
" or
baron
, although the latter term evolved in meaning. For example, the term "baron" was used in the
Cartae Baronum
of 1166, a return of all tenants-in-chief in England. At that time the term was understood to mean the "king's barons", or "king's men", because baron could still have a broader meaning. Originally, for example in
Domesday Book
(1086), there was a small number of powerful English tenants-in-chief under the Norman king who were all magnates directly associated with the king.
Later, as laid-out by I. J. Sanders, the old tenancies-in-chief of England from the time of the Norman king,
King Henry I of England
, came to have a legally distinct form of feudal land holding, the so-called tenure
per baroniam
. The term "baron" thus came to be used mainly for these "
feudal barons
", which comprised a group that over-lapped with the tenancies-in-chief, but was not identical.
[1]
History
[
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]
In most countries
allodial property
could be held by
laypeople
or the
Christian Church
. However, in the
Kingdom of England
after the
Norman Conquest
, the king became in law the sole
lord paramount
and only holder of land by allodial title. Thus all the lands in England became the property of the Crown.
[5]
[6]
A tenure by
frankalmoin
, which in other countries was regarded as a form of privileged allodial holding, was in England regarded as a
feudal tenement
. Every land-holding was deemed by feudal custom to be no more than an
estate in land
, whether directly or indirectly held of the king. Absolute title in land could only be held by the king himself, the most anyone else could hold was a right over land, not a title in land
per se
.
[6]
In England, a tenant-in-chief could enfief, or grant fiefs carved out of his own holding, to his own followers. The creation of subfiefs under a tenant-in-chief or other fief-holder was known as
subinfeudation
.
[7]
The kings of the
House of Normandy
, however, eventually imposed on all free men who occupied a tenement (i.e. those whose tenures were "freehold", that is to say for life or heritable by their heirs), a duty of
fealty
to the crown rather than to their immediate lord who had enfeoffed them. This was to diminish the possibility of sub-vassals being employed by tenants-in-chief against the crown.
[6]
In the great feudal survey Domesday Book (1086), tenants-in-chief were listed first in each
English county
's entry.
[2]
The lands held by a tenant-in-chief in England, if comprising a large
feudal barony
, were called an
honour
.
[8]
Duties of tenants-in-chief
[
edit
]
As feudal lord, the king had the right to collect
scutage
from the barons who held these
honours
.
[9]
Scutage (literally
shield money
, from
escutcheon
) was a tax collected from vassals in lieu of military service. The payment of scutage rendered the crown more independent of the
feudal levy
and enabled it to pay for troops on its own.
[8]
Once a tenant-in-chief received a demand for scutage, the cost was passed on to the sub-tenants and thus came to be regarded as a universal land tax.
[9]
This tax was a development from the taxation system created under the Anglo-Saxon kings to raise money to pay off the invading Danes, the so-called
Danegeld
.
[10]
Heirs
[
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]
When an English tenant-in-chief died, an
inquisition post mortem
was held in each county in which he held land and his or her land temporarily
escheated
(i.e. reverted) to the
demesne
of the crown until the heir paid a sum of money (a
relief
), and was then able to take possession (
livery of seisin
) of the lands. However, if the heir was underage (under 21 for a male heir, under 14 for an heiress) they would be subject to a
feudal wardship
where the custody of their lands and the right to arrange their marriage passed to the monarch, until they came of age. The wardship and marriage was not usually kept in Crown hands, but was sold, often simply to the highest bidder, unless outbid by the next of kin.
[11]
When an heir came of age, he or she passed out of wardship but could not enter upon their inheritance until, like all heirs of full age on inheritance, they had sued out their livery. In either case, the process was complicated.
[11]
Eventually a warrant was issued for the livery to pass under the
Great Seal
.
[11]
From its inception in 1540, The
Court of Wards and Liveries
administered the funds received from the wardships, marriages and the granting of livery; both courts and practice were abolished in 1646
[12]
and the whole system of feudal tenure ? except for
fee simple
? was abolished by the
Tenures Abolition Act 1660
.
See also
[
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]
Notes
[
edit
]
- ^
Tenens (singular), tenentes (plur)
Citations
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
Bloch
Feudal Society Volume 2
p. 333
- ^
a
b
Coredon
Dictionary of Medieval Terms & Phrases
p. 272
- ^
Bracton, who indiscriminately called tenants-in-chief "barons" stated: "sunt et alii potentes sub rege qui barones dicuntur, hoc est robur belli" ("there are other magnates under the king, who are called barons, that is the hardwood of war"), quoted in Sanders, I.J.,
Feudal Military Service in England
, Oxford, 1956, p.3; "Bracton's definition of the
baro
" (plur
barones
) "proves that tenants of this class were considered to be the military backbone of the realm" (Sanders, p.3)
- ^
Coredon
Dictionary of Medieval Terms and Phrases
p. 161
- ^
Ganshof
Feudalism
p. 130
- ^
a
b
c
Ganshof
Feudalism
p. 165
- ^
Cosman
Medieval Wordbook
p. 240
- ^
a
b
Ganshof
Feudalism
p. 166
- ^
a
b
Bartlett
England under the Norman and Angevin Kings
p. 164
- ^
Bartlett
England under the Norman and Angevin Kings
p. 165
- ^
a
b
c
Court of Wards and Liveries: land inheritance 1540?1645
- ^
Friar
Sutton Companion to Local History
p. 465
Sources
[
edit
]
- Bartlett, Robert
(2000).
England Under the Norman and Angevin Kings 1075 -1225
. London: Oxford University Press.
ISBN
978-0-19-925101-8
.
- Bloch, Marc
(1964).
Feudal Society Volume 2: Social Classes and Political Organization
. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
ISBN
0-226-05978-2
.
- Coredon, Christopher (2007).
A Dictionary of Medieval Terms & Phrases
(Reprint ed.). Woodbridge: D. S. Brewer.
ISBN
978-1-84384-138-8
.
- Cosman, Madeleine Pelner (2007).
Medieval Wordbook: More the 4,000 Terms and Expressions from Medieval Culture
. New York: Barnes & Noble.
ISBN
978-0-7607-8725-0
.
- "Court of Wards and Liveries: land inheritance 1540?1645"
.
National Archives
.
Archived
from the original on 9 August 2016
. Retrieved
13 June
2016
.
- Friar, Stephen (2004).
The Sutton Companion to Local History
. Stroud, UK: Sutton Publishing.
ISBN
0-7509-2723-2
.
- Ganshof, L. F.; Grierson, Philip (1996).
Feudalism
. Mediaeval Academy Reprints for Teaching. University of Toronto Press.
ISBN
978-0-8020-7158-3
.
- Sanders, I. J. (1956).
Feudal Military Service in England: A Study of the Constitutional and Military Powers of the Barones in Medieval England
. London: Oxford University Press.
Further reading
[
edit
]