Dictionary Search: "Feud" - Pakistan Law Portal

Consuetudines Feudorum

[Law Latin "the customs of fiefs"] Hist. FEUDORUM LIBRI.

Feud

n. Hist. 1. An inheritable estate in land conveyed from a feudal superior to a grantee or tenant, held on the condition of rendering services to the superior"It is believed that the forms feud and fief appear in England but late in the day under the influence of foreign books; they never became terms of our law. It is noticeable also that feodum was constantly used in the sense that our fee has when we speak of a lawyer's or doctor's fee; payments due for services rendered, at least if they are permanent periodic payments, are feoda; the judges, for example, receive feoda, not salaries. The etymological problem presented by the English fee seems no easy one, because at the Conquest the would-be Latin feodum or feudum (the d in which has puzzled philologists and does not always appear in Domesday Book) is introduced among a people which already has feoh as a word for property in general and cattle in particular." 2 Frederick Pollock & Frederic W. Maitland, The History of English Law Before the Time of Edward 1 236 n.2 (2d ed. 1899).

Feudalism

1. A landholding system, particularly applying to medieval Europe, in which all are bound by their status in a hierarchy of reciprocal obligations of service and defense. * The lord was obligated to give the vassal (1) some land, (2) protection, and (3) justice. The lord guaranteed the quiet occupation of the land by the vassal and guaranteed to do right if the vassal became involved in a dispute. In return, the vassal owed the lord some type of service, called "tenure" (literally 11 means of holding"), because the different types of service were the methods by which the vassals held the property. 2. The social, political, and economic system of medieval Europe. - Also termed feudal system; feodal system "Modern historical research has taught us that, while it is a mistake to speak of a feudal system, the word 'feudalism' is a convenient way of referring to certain fundamental similarities which, in spite of large local variations, can be discerned in the social development of all the peoples of western Europe from about the ninth to the thirteenth centuries." J.L. Brierly, The Law of Nations 2 (5th ed. 1955).

Feudality

See FEALTY.

Feudary

See FEUDATORY.

Feudatory

See FEUDATORY.

Feude

See FEUD.

Feudist

A writer on feuds (for example, Cujacius, Spelman, Craig).

Feudorum Libri

[Latin "the books of the feuds"] Hist. The Books of Feuds, a five-book compilation of Lombardic feudal law published in Milan around 1152, during the reign of Henry III. ( This unofficial compilation was the main source of tenure law among the nations in Europe. It was widely used in medieval law schools and courts in Italy, France, and Germany. The Feudorum Libri were probably known in England but had little effect other than influencing English law- yers to study their own tenure system more critically. - Also termed Consuetudines Feudorum; Usus Feudorum.

Feudum

[Law Latin] A fief or feud; a feodum. - Also termed feodum; feum. Pl. feuda (fyoo-da). See FEUD (1); FIEF; FEE (2). "The Latin equivalent of feodum or feudum is the root of the words 'feudal' and 'subinfeudation'. The French form fief is favoured by some English historians, but it was not used in law-French." J.H. Baker, An Introduction to English Legal History 256 n.4 (3d ed. 1990).

Infeudate

See ENFEOFF.

Subinfeudate

ub. Hist. (Of a subvassal) to grant lands to another to hold as his vassal rather than his superior. - Also termed subinfeud (sab-in-fyood). "[A] more common method of obtaining the annual quota of knights was to subinfeudate portions of the baronial lands to individual knights in exchange for their obligations to spend a fixed portion of time annually in the king's or baron's service. A knight who so received a portion of a baron's land would hold of his baron in much the same way as the baron held of the king." Thomas F. Bergin & Paul G. Haskell, Preface to Estates in Land and Future Interests 4 (2d ed. 1984).

Subinfeudation

n. Hist. The system under which the tenants in a feudal system granted smaller estates to their tenants, who in turn did the same from their pieces of land. Cf, INFEUDATION; SUPERINFEUDATION.

Subinfeudatory

A tenant holding lands by subinfeudation.

Superfeudation

See SUPERINFEUDATION,

Superinfeudation

Hist. The granting of one or more feuds out of a feudal estate. - Also termed superfeudation. Cf. SUBINFEUDATION. "Whatever may be the proper view of its origin and legal nature, the best mode of vividly picturing to ourselves the feudal organisation is to begin with the basis, to consider the relation of the tenant to the patch of soil which created and limited his services - and then to mount up, through narrowing circles of super-feudation, till we approximate to the apex of the system." Henry S. Maine, Ancient Law 88 (17th ed. 1901).

Tenor est qui legem Bat feudo

It is the tenor that gives law to the fee.( That is, the tenor of the feudal grant regulates its effect and extent.

Usus Feudorum

See FEUDORUM LIBRI.

blood feud.

A state of hostility between families in which one family seeks to avenge the killing of one of its members by killing a member of the other family. "Anglo-Saxon polity preserved, even down to the Norman Conquest, many traces of a time when kinship was the strongest of all bonds. Such a stage of society, we hardly need add, is not confined to any one region of the world or any one race of men .... When it puts on the face of strife between hostile kindreds, it is shown in the war of tribal factions, and more specifically in the bloodfeud. A man's kindred are his avengers; and, as it is their right and honour to avenge him, so it is their duty to make amends for his misdeeds, or else maintain his cause in fight. Step by step, as the power of the State waxes, the self-centred and self-helping autonomy of the kindred wanes. Private feud is controlled, regulated, put, one may say, into legal harness; the avenging and the protecting clan on the slain and the slayer are made pledges and auxiliaries of public justice." 1 Frederick Pollock & Frederic W. Maitland, The History of English Law Before the Time of Edward 1 31 (2d ed. 1898).

feudal action

Hist. A real action; an action that concerned only real property.

feudal law

Hist. The real-property law of land tenures that prevailed in England, esp. after the Norman Conquest. See FEUDARUM CONSUETUDINES. feudal system. See FEUDALISM.

feudal, adj

Of, relating to, or growing out of feudalism <feudal law>. 2. Of or relating to a feud <feudal tenure>. Cf. ALLODIAL.

feudarum consuetudines

[Latin] The customs of feuds. ( This was the name of a compilation of feudal laws and customs made in 12th-century Milan. 9 It is regarded as an 'authoritative work in continental Europe. Also spelled feodarum consuetudines.

feudum antiquum

n. [Law Latin "ancient feud"] Hist. 1. A feud that passed to a vassal from an intestate ancestor. 2. A feud that ancestors had possessed for more than four generations. 3. An ancient feud. Pl. feuda antiqua (fyoo-da an-ti-kwa). - Also termed feodum antiquum (fee-a-dam or fyoo-dam). See FEUD (1).

feudum apertum

Hist. A feud that reverted to the lord because of a tenant's failure of issue, a crime by the tenant, or some other legal cause. - Also termed feodum apertum.

feudum francium

Hist. A free feud; a feud or fee that was noble and free from talliage and subsidies that vulgar feuds (plebeia feuda) were subject to.

feudum hauberticum

Hist. A feud that was held on the military service of appearing fully armed when summoned by the lord. See ARRIERBAN.

feudum improprium

Hist. A feud that was improper or derivative.

feudum indiaiduum

Hist. A feud that was indivisible and descendible only to the eldest son.

feudum laicum

Hist. A lay feud. - Also termed feodum laicum.

feudum ligium

Hist. 1. A liege feud; a feud held immediately of the sovereign. 2. A feud for which the vassal owed fealty to his lord against all other persons.

feudum maternum

Hist. A feud that descended to the feudatory from the maternal side.

feudum militare

Hist. A knight's feud. ( It was held by knight service and esteemed the most honorable species of tenure. - Also termed feodum militis; (in Norman law) fief d'haubert or fief d'hauberk.

feudum nobile

Hist. A feud for which the tenant did guard and owed fealty and homage. - Also termed feodum nobile.

feudum novum

Hist. 1. A new feud. 2. A feud beginning in the person of the feudatory rather than by succession. - Also spelled feodum novum.

feudum novum ut antiquum

Hist. A new feud held with the qualities of an ancient feud.

feudum paternum

Hist. 1. A feud that the tenant's paternal ancestors had held for four generations. 2. A feud descendible only to the heirs on the paternal side. 3. A feud that could be held only by males.

feudum proprium

Hist. An original feud that is military in nature and held by military service.

feudum talliatum

See FEE TAIL.

honorary feud.

Hist. In England, a title of nobility descending to the eldest son only. See FEUD.

impartible feud

An indivisible feud; a feud not subject to partition. See FEUDUM INDIVIDUUM.

improper feud

A nonmilitary feud; a feud that is base or servile in nature. "These were the principal, and very simple, qualities of the genuine or original feuds; being then all of a military nature, and in the hands of military persons: though the feudatories, being under frequent incapacities of cultivating and manuring their own lands, soon found it necessary to commit part of them to inferior tenants .... But this at the same time demolished the ancient simplicity of feuds; and an inroad being once made upon their constitution, it subjected them, in a course of time, to great varieties and innovations. Feuds came to be bought and sold, and deviations were made from the old fundamental rules of tenure and succession; which were held no longer sacred, when the feuds themselves no longer continued to be purely military. Hence these tenures began now to be divided into feoda propria et impropria, proper and improper feuds ...." 2 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 57-58 (1766).

infeudation

n. Under the feudal system of landholding, the process of giving a person legal possession of land; ENFEOFFMENT (1). - infeudate, vb. CC SUBINFEUDATION.

proper feud