Terminology
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- The right in English law of presenting a nominee to a vacant ecclesiastical benefice. In effect this means the right to nominate a person to hold a church office in a parish.
- Appurtenances
- Items that belong to another thing, such as yards and gardens belong to a building.
- Answer
- A document in a Chancery suit, filed by the defendant in response to a bill of complaint.
- Assigns
- Those to whom property is transferred or those entrusted with the distribution of property or other legacies in a will.
- Aver
- To verify or prove to be true in pleading a cause, to declare positively.
- Benefice
- An ecclesiastical office.
- Bill of Complaint
- The initial document in a Chancery suit, filed by the plaintiff.
- Capital Messuage
- Large dwelling house or primary residence.
- Carucate
- An old English unit of land-area measurement, varying from 60 to 160 acres; as much land as one team can plow in a year and a day.
- Court of Requests
- A minor court of the king's council in England, under the presidency of the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal.
- Demesne
- The name given to that portion of the lands of a manor which the lord retained in his own hands for the use of himself and family.
- Demesne as of fee
- A man is said to be seised in his demesne as of fee of a corporeal inheritance, because he has a property dominicum or demesne in the thing itself. But when he has no dominion in the thing itself, as in the case of an incorporeal hereditament, he is said to be seised as of fee, and not in his demesne as of fee.
- Enfeoffment
- Under the feudal system, enfeoffment was the deed by which a person was given land in exchange for a pledge of service.
- Essoin
- An excuse for nonappearance in court.
- Fee Entail
- Freehold land where an estate was bequeathed under a strict succession order.
- Fee Simple
- Freehold land which could be disposed of at the wishes of the owner.
- Frankpledge
- In medieval England all householders were grouped into tithings of 10 or 12 householders. They had a mutual responsibility for the behavior everyone within their group and presenting wrong doers to the manorial court leet. The right to ensure that everyone was included in such a grouping was termed a View of Frankpledge.
- Freehold
- The holding of land without the need for manorial labour service, held by Knight's Service or Scutage. There were two types of freehold - Fee Simple and fee entail.
- Honor/Honour
- A seignory of several manors held under one baron or lord paramount.
- Incumbent
- The holder of a Benefice.
- Interrogatories
- List of prepared questions to be asked in depositions for Chancery suits.
- Mark
- A 'mark' was worth two-thirds of a pound, or 13s 4d. This was never a physical amount of money represented by a coin, but was a common amount used for accounting purposes.
- Messuage
- A dwelling house along with it's outbuildings and the grounds it stood in. See also Capital Messuage.
- Moiety
- One of two approximately equal parts.
- Patron
- The holder of an advowson.
- Rejoinder
- A document in a Chancery suit, filed by the defendant in response to the Replication.
- Replication
- A document in a Chancery suit, filed by the plaintiff in response to the Answer.
- Scutage
- A payment made by those who held land in return for military service, but who were unable or unwilling to perform it.
- Seize / Seise
- To put a person in legal possession of a feudal holding; to invest or endow with property
- Seized
- To be the legal possessor of.
- Seised in his demesne as of fee
- To be the holder of the fee-simple.
- Star Chamber
- An English court of law at the royal Palace of Westminster that sat between 1487 and 1641. The court was set up to ensure the fair enforcement of laws against prominent people, those so powerful that ordinary courts could never convict them of their crimes.
- Supplicant
- One who supplicates, a term applied to humble petitioners.
- Sythens
- An archaic form of the word "since".
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