A glossary of manorial terms

Administrator — The person appointed by the court to deal with a dead person's estate when there is no executor able or willing to act.

Admission — The formal acceptance by the manor court of a new copyhold tenant, recorded in the court roll, usually following a surrender or an inheritance.

Advowson — The right to nominate the priest to a parish church — itself a piece of property, capable of being owned, inherited, and sold separately from the land around the church.

Affeerors — Tenants sworn at the court leet to fix the amount of each amercement.

Amercement — A financial penalty imposed by a manor court for an offence or default.

Annuity — A fixed yearly payment, such as Lady Leche's £80 a year.

Antecessor — Domesday Book's term for the person who held land before the Conquest and whose lands a Norman lord took over.

Assize of bread and ale — The rules fixing the price, weight and quality of bread and ale, enforced at the court leet.

Attainder / Forfeiture — The legal consequence of a conviction for treason or a similar offence, by which the offender's estates were confiscated to the Crown, extinguishing their family's title to those lands regardless of any will or settlement.

Bargain and sale — A deed of sale of land for money. For freehold land it had to be enrolled (formally recorded) in one of the royal courts, such as Chancery, within six months to take effect.

Baronetcy — A hereditary title ranking below a baron but above a knight, created by the Crown; its holder is styled “Sir,” but, unlike a peerage such as Baron Belper, a baronetcy is not part of the peerage and carries no seat in the House of Lords.

Beneficial owner / beneficial interest — The person entitled to the property for their own benefit, even when someone else holds the legal title for them. This is not necessarily the person who collects the rents or holds the manor courts: a trustee or executor may be entitled to receive the profits but must use them for others, so they are not the beneficial owner. This website counts lords by beneficial ownership of the freehold.

Capital money — Money raised from a settled estate (for example, on a sale) which, under the Settled Land Act 1925, had to be paid to at least two trustees or into court, rather than to the tenant for life personally, so as to preserve the interests of those entitled after them.

Chancery — The Court of Chancery, England's principal court of equity until the late nineteenth century, which heard disputes over trusts, wills and similar obligations that the older common-law courts could not address — the forum in which the 1675 Leche trust dispute was decided.

Chase / Frith — A chase was a private hunting ground, similar to a royal forest but held by a subject rather than the Crown; “frith” is an old word for woodland used in this sense locally, as in Duffield Frith, the wooded hunting area historically distinguished from the ordinary manors of Duffield Fee.

Common law — The law developed by the royal courts from custom and earlier decisions, as distinct from equity. Ownership "in law" means holding the legal title recognised by these courts.

Conveyance, deed, indenture — General terms for the documents by which land is transferred. A deed is any formal, signed and witnessed legal document; a conveyance is a deed that transfers ownership of land; an indenture is a deed made between two or more parties, traditionally cut with a wavy edge so each party's copy could be matched to prove it genuine.

Copyhold — A form of landholding under which a tenant held land according to the custom of a particular manor, evidenced by a copy of the relevant entry in the manorial court roll — as distinct from freehold land. Copyhold was converted into freehold from 1 January 1926 by the Law of Property Act 1922.

Court baron — The lord's court for the tenants of the manor, dealing with the manor's business and its copyhold land. See also 'small court' and 'great court'.

Court leet — A manorial court with petty criminal and policing powers; its full name was 'view of frankpledge'.

Court rolls — The written records of a manorial court's proceedings — tenancies, transfers of copyhold land, deaths and successions, local by-laws and disputes — kept, in Belper's case, by the steward of Duffield Fee.

Covenant — A formal promise contained in a deed — here, typically an early agreement to complete a sale on agreed terms, later followed by the actual conveyance that carries it into effect.

Decree — A final order of the Court of Chancery.

Demise — To lease: to grant possession of property for a fixed period (a term of years). As a noun, the lease itself. In deeds the word has nothing to do with death.

Devise, legacy, legatee — A devise is a gift of land made by will; a legacy is a gift of money or other personal property made by will; a legatee is the person who receives a legacy.

Domesday Book — The great survey of England commissioned by William the Conqueror and completed in 1086, recording who held which land, its value, and who had held it before the Conquest — the earliest and most authoritative source for landholding in this period.

Dower — A widow's right to a life interest in one third of her late husband's freehold land.

Duchy of Lancaster — The private estate of the reigning monarch, held separately from other Crown lands since 1399.

Entitled in possession — Having the right to enjoy property now, rather than at some future date.

Equity / in law and in equity — Equity is the body of rules developed by the Court of Chancery to protect rights the strict common law ignored, above all those of beneficiaries under trusts. Owning something "in law" means holding the legal title; owning it "in equity" means being the beneficial owner.

Equity of redemption — A borrower's right to recover mortgaged property by repaying the loan, even after the repayment date had passed. The courts treated it as the borrower's real ownership.

Execute (a use or trust) — Under the Statute of Uses, to turn a beneficiary's interest into full legal ownership automatically, so that the person holding for them drops out.

Executor — The person named in a will to administer the deceased's estate — paying debts and distributing legacies and devises according to its terms.

Fee simple — The largest and most complete estate in land known to English law — outright ownership, freely inheritable and transferable, as opposed to a lesser interest such as a life interest or a leasehold.

Fee-farm rent — A fixed rent payable forever. The Crown reserved one when it sold land, and every later owner had to pay it.

Feoffee — A person to whom freehold land was conveyed; in the context of uses, the person holding land to the use of someone else.

Fine (entry fine) — A payment due to the lord when a copyholder was admitted to land.

Freehold — Ownership of land without a fixed end date, as opposed to a lease or copyhold. Fee simple is the fullest form.

Glebe — Land belonging to a parish church, providing income for its priest, distinct from the land of the wider manor even where both fell under the same family's ownership.

Grant of probate — The court's confirmation of an executor's authority to deal with a dead person's estate.

Great court / great court baron — A fuller sitting of the court baron, usually held alongside the leet. The homage presented deaths of tenants, defaults of suit and other manorial matters, and suitors were called.

Great Seal — The monarch's principal seal, used to authenticate the most important royal grants.

Habendum — The clause in a deed (traditionally beginning “to have and to hold…”) that states what estate or interest is being granted and to whom — often used, as here, to confirm exactly which manors a conveyance covers.

Headborough — A local constable, elected at the court leet.

Heriot — A payment due to the lord on a tenant's death, originally the tenant's best beast.

Homage — The jury of tenants at a manor court, who formally reported ("presented") deaths, defaults and other matters.

Incorporeal hereditament — A right in or over land that has no physical substance and cannot be physically possessed, but which the law nonetheless treats as real property, capable of being owned and inherited — a lordship of the manor, an advowson, and a right of way are all examples.

Inquisition Post Mortem (IPM) — A Crown inquiry held on the death of a tenant who held land directly of the King, to establish what land they held, its value, and who their lawful heir was — a key source for tracing medieval landholding.

Inspeximus — Latin for "we have inspected"; an official royal copy of an earlier grant that confirms it.

Jointure — Land or income set aside for a wife to live on if she was widowed, usually arranged at the marriage.

King's Counsel (KC) — A senior barrister formally appointed to the rank by the Crown, recognised as a leader of the legal profession — styled “Queen's Counsel” (QC) during a queen's reign, “King's Counsel” (KC) during a king's.

Lease and release — The usual 17th-century way of transferring land privately. The seller granted the buyer a lease, typically for one year, and the next day released all remaining rights to them. It was also used for mortgages.

Legal title / legal estate — Ownership recognised by the common-law courts — the name on the deeds. A trustee or mortgagee might hold it for someone else's benefit.

Letters patent — An open royal document under the Great Seal granting land, a title or rights.

Lordship of the manor — The bundle of rights and dignities attached to a manor, capable since medieval times of being bought, sold and inherited separately from any land or building — what is bought when a manorial title changes hands today.

Manor — The basic unit of landholding in medieval England — an estate held by a lord, with its own tenants, customs and court — and the origin of the lordship rights that survive, and can still be bought and sold, today.

Marriage portion — A sum of money or property settled on a child, usually a daughter, at marriage — often charged on the family estate and raised, if necessary, by selling part of it, as with several of the Leche children's portions in this chain.

Master in Chancery — A senior officer of the Court of Chancery who examined matters the court referred to him, such as accounts or a proposed sale, and reported back.

Mortgage / mortgagee — In the 17th century, a mortgage meant actually transferring the land to the lender (the mortgagee) as security. The lender handed it back (reconveyed it) when the loan was repaid.

Nominee — A person who holds legal title in their own name on behalf of someone else.

Old Style dates — Before 1752, the year began on 25 March, so dates between 1 January and 24 March are written with both years, as in 1671/2.

Overreaching — A conveyancing mechanism by which a sale of settled land can pass clean title to a purchaser free of the beneficiaries' interests, provided the sale proceeds are paid to at least two trustees — the beneficiaries' rights are then said to be “overreached” onto the money instead of the land.

Overseer (of a will) — A person named in a will to supervise the executors. Sir William Leche's will also gave his overseers the power to sell his manors.

Pains — By-laws made at the court leet, each with a penalty for breaking it.

Personal representative — A general term for an executor or administrator.

Plaintiff — The person bringing a court case (today called the claimant).

Pleadings — The parties' formal written statements of their case.

Power of sale — A legal authority, here given by a will, to sell property.

Prebend — The endowment or income (often land or tithes) allocated to support a member of a cathedral or collegiate church's clergy — here, associated with the rectories of Sawley and Wilne.

Proclamation (of heirs) — Calling at successive courts for the heir of a dead copyholder to come forward and be admitted.

Reconveyance — The transfer of mortgaged land back to the borrower once the loan is repaid. Without it, the lender keeps the legal title, as happened with Keck.

Rectory / rectoral manor — The rectory is the church living and its associated endowment; a “rectoral manor” denotes a manorial jurisdiction built around ownership of that church living and its glebe land, distinct from, though sometimes later merged with, the ordinary temporal manor over the same ground.

Regnal year — A method of dating by the number of years a monarch has reigned, rather than by the calendar year — “6 Edward I” means the sixth year of Edward I's reign, corresponding to 1277–78, since regnal years did not align with the calendar year.

Reversion — The interest retained by a grantor (or passing to their heirs) in property they have granted away for a lesser estate — for example, land let for a life ends up reverting to the grantor's estate once that life ends.

Seisin — Feudal legal possession of a freehold estate in land — more than mere occupation, it denoted the formal, recognised holding of the estate from which title derived.

Settled Land Act 1925 (SLA) settlement — A statutory scheme under which land was held on trust across successive generations of a family (typically “to A for life, then to B”), with a “tenant for life” given management powers and legal title, while the underlying ownership was protected by trustees of the settlement.

Small court — The routine court baron, held about every three weeks (hence "three-weeks court"). It dealt with copyhold business: surrenders, admissions, proclamations of heirs, fines and heriots.

Special court — Called outside the regular cycle for particular business, often an urgent surrender.

Special personal representative (SPR) — A person appointed to take a limited grant of probate solely to deal with settled land forming part of a deceased's estate, distinct from the general executor(s) who administer the rest of the estate — used to keep the settled-land title chain distinct and unbroken.

Statute of Uses (1535) / trust — An Act that turned the beneficial interest in land into legal ownership. Before it, a landowner could convey to a friend "to the use of" another, so the friend had legal title and the other (conveying) person had only the beneficial enjoyment, which the common law did not recognise. The Act provided that where a person was seised of a freehold estate "to the use, confidence or trust" of another, the beneficiary was deemed to hold the full legal estate. The legal title passed to the beneficiary and the feoffee (trustee) dropped out. This applied to a simple trust of a freehold as much as to a use. The Act did not reach every arrangement though:

A use upon a use. If land was conveyed "to A, to the use of B, in trust for C", the first use executed in B and the second was left to equity (Tyrrel's Case, 1557). This is how legal title did not pass to Jodrell in the 1686 conveyance to his two trustees.
An active trust, where the trustee had real duties such as managing land or collecting rents.
A term of years, personal property or an equitable interest, none of which the Act applied to.

Conveyancers could still keep legal title away from the beneficiary, for instance to avoid a widow's dower. They did it with a use upon a use clause, an active trust, or a conveyance of only an equitable estate.

Statutory declaration — A formal written statement of facts, sworn before a solicitor or other authorised person, often used to fill gaps in a chain of title.

Steward — The lord's official who ran the manor court and kept its records.

Suit of court / suitors — Tenants' obligation to attend the manor court. Those who owed it were suitors, and failing to attend was a default.

Suretyship — Guaranteeing another person's debt.

Surrender — Giving up copyhold land into the lord's hands, usually so that it could be granted, by admission, to a buyer or other new tenant.

Tenant for life — Under a Settled Land Act settlement, the person currently entitled to possession and income of the settled land during their lifetime, and who holds the legal estate and statutory powers of sale on behalf of the whole settlement.

Tenant in tail (entail) — An owner whose land had to pass down a line of descendants. Edward Leche argued his father held the land only this way, and so couldn't bind it by his will.

Tenant-in-chief — A person who held land directly from the Crown, rather than from another lord — the class of landholder whose death triggered an Inquisition Post Mortem.

Term of years — A lease for a fixed period, such as the 99-year term in the 1655/6 deed.

Thegn — An Anglo-Saxon nobleman who held land in return for service to the king.

Tithes — A tenth of the produce of land, paid to support the church.

TRE — An abbreviation of the Latin Tempore Regis Edwardi, “in the time of King Edward” — the standard Domesday Book shorthand for how and by whom land was held immediately before the Norman Conquest, under Edward the Confessor.

Trust / trustee / passive trust — A trustee holds legal title for the benefit of someone else, the beneficiary. A passive trust gives the trustee no duties beyond holding the title. See also 'Statute of Uses'.

Trust instrument — The document accompanying a Settled Land Act vesting deed which sets out the actual trusts of the settlement — who is entitled to what, and in what order — kept separate from the vesting deed so that a purchaser need only see the latter.

Use — The medieval forerunner of the trust. Land held "to the use of" someone was held for their benefit. See 'Statute of Uses'.

Vesting assent — The document by which personal representatives pass settled land to a new tenant for life.

Vesting deed — The document that formally vests the legal estate in settled land in the current tenant for life (or other statutory owner), and which a purchaser is entitled to rely on without needing to see the trust instrument behind it.

View of frankpledge — See 'court leet'. Frankpledge was the medieval system under which men were grouped into tithings, each member answerable for the good behaviour of the others; the 'view' was the court's periodic check that the system was being kept up.

View of frankpledge with great court — The court leet joined to the great court. Usually held twice a year, around Easter (April) and Michaelmas (October). It handled petty policing: breaches of the assize of bread and ale, affrays and bloodshed, nuisances, repairs to roads, bridges and watercourses (the "pains"), and the election of headboroughs and other officers. Affeerors fixed the amercements.

Wardship — A feudal incident by which the Crown or a lord took custody of a minor heir's person and estate until they came of age, along with the right to arrange (or sell the right to arrange) their marriage — one of the standard “incidents” reserved in medieval land grants.