Glossary
| Author | Christopher Jessel |
| Pages | 495-505 |
Glossary
These are not formal definitions but a guide to general meaning. Most of the words are discussed in the text.
Accidental services: occasional payments to lord, such as due on death of tenant Acre: an area that could be ploughed in a day. The modern statute acre is 4840 square yards or about 0.4 of a hectare
Adscriptus (adscripticus) glebae: registered with the soil. The status of a colonus who could not leave his holding
Adjunct: a right automatically adjoined to a manor
Admission: see admittance
Admittance: procedure for a new copyholder to take a holding
Advowson: right to present an incumbent to a benefice
Anchorage: right to put down anchor overnight in a port, right for the port owner to charge for that
Allod, allodial land: land held without a superior in tenure
Amercement: penalty fixed by a court
Annexure: right that becomes attached to a manor
Annual services: regular payments to lord such as rent
Appendant right: right which may become held with a manor, eg common appendant, advowson appendant
Appropriate (rectory): rectory appropriated by a monastery which put in a vicar as incumbent
Appurtenance: right that appertains to a manor or to land, such as right of way Assize: sitting, usually of a court
Assoin: see essoin
Assurance: transfer of property by substitution
Bailiff: deputy of a steward
Balk (baulk, meer, slade): space between two strips
Ballastage (ballatage, lastage, lestage): toll for providing ballast Bare lordship: seigniory which carried no other rights
Baron (court): assembly of the free suitors or freeholders
Baron (dignity): lowest rank in the peerage
Baronet: hereditary knighthood
496 The Law of the Manor
Barony: sometimes synonym for honour
Beastgate: holding of grazing land in common
Benefice: position of a clergyman in a parish (or other post) understood as property. On Continent, type of tenure
Black rent: rent payable in pepper
Bookland: Anglo-Saxon tenure by charter
Bondsman: unfree tenant bound usually to the soil, sometimes to a lord Bordar: type of bondsman
Bote: a profit, usually of wood
Burgage: form of socage found in towns
Bushelage: a toll by reference to corn weighed by the bushel
Canon law: law of the Church
Carriage: a toll for carrying
Castle guard: a type of military tenure
Cattlegate: holding of grazing land in common
Ceorl (churl): Anglo-Saxon free commoner
Champion (coronation): duty performed at the coronation; formerly a service in grand sergeanty
Champion (landscape): region comprising open field systems
Charter: documentary grant now issued by the Privy Council
Chase: rights analogous to forest held by a subject and without forest court Chattel: personal property. Includes goods, debts, leases
Cheminage: toll of way
Chief Lord: the lord above the holder of the land or manor
Chief rent: rent due to a tenurial superior
Civil law: Roman law as understood in England
Close: cultivated enclosed piece of land usually held in severalty
Closed manor or village: under tight landowner control
Colibert: type of bondsman
Colonus: Roman tenant farmer bound to the land
Commendation: surrender of allod to new lord and taking it back in fee Common: the word indicates sharing but is used in different meanings Common, in: land or rights shared among several owners who each have a separately owned interest without being divided
Common calling: services to be provided (if available) to anyone who could pay Common calling: trade whose benefits must be made available to anyone able and willing to pay
Common field: area of agricultural system of strips
Common land: land subject to rights of common (for the purposes of the
Commons Registration Act 1965 also includes waste of the manor)
Common law: law of whole community of England, system practised in the
English courts, as contrasted with custom, equity, statute, canon law and civil law
Common right: right automatically attached to a holding, such as common appendant
Common, right of: a profit held in common with others
Commonable: land subject to mutual arrangements similar to rights of common but terminable on any strip at the will of the owner of that strip. Also right held by copyholder over lord’s land. Also beast through which right of pasture may be exercised. Sometimes incorrectly used as synonym for common
Commons, House of: assembly of representatives of communities of the realm Commutation: settlement of rights for a fixed money payment
Constable: officer appointed to keep the peace
Conversion: turning of one right or status into another, as of allod into fee or copyhold into leasehold
Conveyance: assurance of land (usually freehold) or other rights
Copyhold: manorial land held by copy of court roll.
Copyhold, pure: land held at the will of the lord according to the custom of the manor
Corn rent: type of payment to a church
Corporeal hereditament: land
Corporal services: service due to lord by work in person
Corporation: individual or body of persons with existence either perpetual or outlasting any specific individual
Corporeal: tangible
Cottar: type of bondsman, cottager
Count: official of Roman Empire, companion of the emperor, later often an independent feudal aristocrat
County: on Continent, area of jurisdiction of count. In England, a...
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