Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
A fief (/ f iː f /; Latin: feudum) was a central element in medieval contracts based on feudal law. It consisted of a form of property holding or other rights granted by an overlord to a vassal , who held it in fealty or "in fee" in return for a form of feudal allegiance, services or payments.
Under the feudal system in England, a feoffee (/ f ɛ ˈ f iː, f iː ˈ f iː /) is a trustee who holds a fief (or "fee"), that is to say an estate in land, for the use of a beneficial owner. The term is more fully stated as a feoffee to uses of the beneficial owner.
Modern Norwegian historians often use the term lensherre (English: 'fief lord') instead of lensmann, although from the legal point of view, the king was the fief lord, and the title used by contemporaries was lensmand, not lensherre. [1]
[citation needed] In feudal England a feoffment could only be made of a fee (or "fief"), which is an estate in land, that is to say an ownership of rights over land, rather than ownership of the land itself, the only true owner of which was the monarch under his allodial title.
The adjective feudal was in use by at least 1405, and the noun feudalism was in use by the end of the 18th century, [4] paralleling the French féodalité.. According to a classic definition by François Louis Ganshof (1944), [1] feudalism describes a set of reciprocal legal and military obligations of the warrior nobility that revolved around the key concepts of lords, vassals and fiefs, [1 ...
In this framework, a "formal colony" or "junior ally" might also be regarded as a vassal state in terms of international relations, analogous to a domestic "fief-holder" or "trustee". The concept of a vassal state uses the concept of personal vassalry to theorize formally hegemonic relationships between states – even those using non-personal ...
Get AOL Mail for FREE! Manage your email like never before with travel, photo & document views. Personalize your inbox with themes & tabs. You've Got Mail!
The seigneur owned a seigneurie, seigneury, or lordship—a form of title or land tenure—as a fief, with its associated obligations and rights over person and property. [1] In this sense, a seigneur could be an individual—male or female, high or low-born—or a collective entity, typically a religious community such as a monastery ...