Medieval English Conveyances

Abstract

This study of the documents used in medieval England for the creation and transfer of interests in real property is the first book devoted exclusively to the subject since the publication of Thomas Madox's Formulare Anglicanum in 1702. The transactions covered include grants in fee and in perpetual alms, leases for life and for years, exchanges, surrenders and releases. Analysis of each kind of transaction is partly by way of commentary on the formulae of deeds, selected from the many thousands found in published cartularies and collections, and partly by relating the deeds to the relevant law of their periods, as found in early treatises, decided cases and the Year Books. The aim is to enable readers to identify and categorise deeds accurately, to appreciate their legal effects and to note instances where the practice of conveyancers and their clients differed from what is supposed to have been the law.

Institutional factors influencing productivity in medieval England: A case study of tin, lead and silver mining

“…37–38). These protections again reduced the potential for interference with the mining from local lords (Kaye, 2009, p. 265)…”

Married women and their landholdings: the evidence from feet of fines, 1310–1509

“…19 This should not be surprising, as the fine was the only means of lawfully conveying good title to the property of a married woman and avoid subsequent challenges whilst having the added advantage of producing a semi-public record. 20 Hence women could use fines as a means of securing their own objectives, but fines might also be insisted on as the appropriate form of conveyance when land was conveyed from women to men. Furthermore, these women freeholders came from different social backgrounds and their properties varied in size and could be as small as a single dwelling.…”

Tenure and property in medieval England

“…In eleventh‐century Normandy, from which the word feudum was imported to England, ‘holding’ ( tenere ) does not seem to have indicated less than ‘having’ ( habere ): neither apparently implied particular rights or obligations . The phrase habendum et tenendum that became customary in charters of land was surely not intended to express two different actions, oddly adding the weaker after the stronger, any more than did ‘to have and to hold’ in the English marriage service . The two verbs repeat the same idea in rhyming or alliterative jingles for emphasis and memorability.…”