Feoffment: An oldie but a ... well, mostly just an oldie.
Still, the more you look, the more complicated it gets
One insight to how tragic my life has become is how excited I feel when I stumble upon a word I’ve not seen before. So it was that a surge of electricity coursed through my body a few days ago when I spied feoffment in an article on mediaeval times.
“Ooh,” I thought with a touch of sadness for that which has been lost, “who knew our ancestors had a word for the act of leaving hurriedly at another’s request?”
No such luck. Feoffment, it turns out, is a feudal term which Wikipedia defines as “the deed by which a person was given land in exchange for a pledge of service”.
The word comes from the Old French feoffement, which is connected to the concept of a fief or fee; that is, a plot of land granted to a vassal (eg, you or me) by an all-powerful lord (eg, Jeff Bezos). In return for this little patch of swamp, the vassal would be bound to do the lord favours, such as provide part of their meagre annual harvest for his bloated retinue, go into battle on behalf of his bloated ego, or pack boxes of consumer goods for delivery to people in far off places to further fill his bloated coffers.
The whole miserable process was known as feudalism, and feoffment was one of its central pillars. And it turns out that when you dig into the history of this odd word, you enter a tangled web of archaic, semi-archaic and now strictly legal terms that are enough to make your head spin.
Transferring land via feoffment wasn’t as simple as handing over a deed - in fact, deeds weren’t always necessary. Feoffment was often conducted via a public ceremony affair called a livery of seisin. The lord, having flown in on his private horse, would hand over a symbolic object like a clod of earth or a twig to signify the transfer of ownership. (These days, this is called a wage, but that’s another story.) In accepting the object, the vassal “seised” the land, meaning they had legal possession.
Livery in this context meant a household allowance - such as food, provisions or clothing - to retainers or servants. Today its meaning is mostly limited to clothing worn by someone performing a service, or as a word for an enterprise that houses horses for customers, much like a cattery or a kennel (but bigger). It’s a first cousin to liberty and liberation, which have their source in the Latin liber, “free”. The property-related term freehold originally meant land owned by a freeman - that is, someone not tied to the land as a serf. The meaning of freehold later became synonymous with owning land outright.
Seisin is an archaic term for taking possession of land. It’s a first cousin of seize, whose etymology is a little murky, which is code for “beyond me”.
To be granted land by feoffment was a big deal. You didn’t just become a landowner - you entered a social and political web of relationships that ran from lowly you all the way up to your king.
In the 1300s, feudalism began to decline, helped on its way out by pleasant interludes like the Black Death (1348-1350), the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, and the Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453 - people in those days were crap at arithmetic). On a side note, isn’t it wonderful how an interest in etymology inevitably adds to your knowledge of other subjects too? In the last few weeks, I’ve learned new stuff about history, spelling, cows, botany and medicine, to name but a few areas. It’s a wonder my brain hasn’t exploded.
As feudalism faded, feoffment evolved; clods of earth were replaced by written deeds and a swathe of attendant legal terms and niceties that shape property law to this day. Among them is conveyancing, which has its roots in the act of handing over that soil or twig. The fee in fee simple derives from fief, and the word simple means the owner holds the land in perpetuity, is free to sell it or pass it on to their heirs, and - within limits - can do pretty much what they want with it in the meantime. Fee simple is distinct from fee tail (also called entail, or tailzie if you’re Scottish), which prevents the owner (or, more accurately, tenant-in-possession) from selling or passing the land on to whoever they like. Instead, the land would generally revert to the lord upon the tenant’s demise (often preceded by the word “premature”; see Black Death, Peasant’s Revolt and Hundred Years’ War, above).
Other modern legal terms dating back to mediaeval times include easement (wherein the lord would graciously allow you to cross his land), covenant, reversion, tenant, and adverse possession, or what you and I would more likely call squatting. Even in feudal times, if you could squat on a piece of land long enough, you just might end up owning it - if the lord’s dogs didn’t rip you apart and his footmen burn your hovel to the ground first.
If you can hear echoes of feudalism in the modern property system, so can I. Every time you transfer that wad of money from your bank account to the bank’s (a vanishingly tiny portion of it going to reduce your mortgage while the rest merely covers your interest payment), you’re surely mimicking a mediaeval serf. And while the bank won’t burn your house down if you fail to meet your end of the bargain, history still tells us it’s a foolish person who takes them on.
I think it’s delightfully appropriate that so many archaic terms not only survive, but flourish, within today’s legal system. Are there any other professions so steeped in tradition, much of it for nothing but show or for giving barristers itchy heads?
A quarrel of itchy heads.
But I’ve said enough. Pissing off Jeff Bezos, the few remaining Lords of the British class system, banks, and the legal profession is surely enough risk-taking for one day. I believe it’s time for me to practice a little feoffment and bid you farewell until next week.
Bits and specious
I’m currently listening to the audiobook of The Coddling of the American Mind. If, like me, you believe our culture has become too quick to class what once would have been called provocative or even offensive ideas as hate speech (which must therefore be forbidden), you’ll find it insightful and, possibly, a little disturbing. One of the book’s many admirable qualities is its refusal to blame today’s young people for what it sees as a widespread lack of capacity - especially among young people - to cope with robust debate. The source of this lack, say the authors, is a parenting culture that started some time ago (ie, with my generation) that placed children’s safety above preparing them for life. That culture extended not just to physical safety, but also to keeping children safe from “bad feelings” and troubling ideas. I believe my generation has a lot to answer for.
Quote of the week
I have seen three emperors in their nakedness, and the sight was not inspiring.
Otto von Bismarck