England Land Records Glossary A to E (National Institute)

The original content for this article was contributed by The National Institute for Genealogical Studies in June 2012. It is an excerpt from their course English: Land and Property Records including Manorial Documents and Maps  by Dr. Penelope Christensen. The Institute offers over 200 comprehensive genealogy courses for a fee ($).

GLOSSARY

Note that some terms had different meanings in different parts of UK. For further definitions consult Fitzhugh (Dictionary of Genealogy, 1998), Hey (The Oxford Companion to Local and Family History, 1996), Hollowell (Enclosure Records for Historians, 2000) and Richardson (The Local Historian’s Encyclopaedia, 2003)

Absolute surrender	A sale of copyhold land
Abstract of title	Summary of prior ownership prepared when a property was about to be sold
Abuttal	The owner/occupier of land adjoining the one under consideration
Abut(ment)	Strictly, the lands next to the shorter sides of the piece of land in question; the longer sides are said to lie alongside others. Also used to mean all adjoining pieces of land
Acre	Originally the amount of land a single team of oxen could plough in one day. Commonly 0.4 hectares or 4 roods.
Act	An Act of Parliament; part of the Statute law
Admission	Issue of copy of manorial court roll allowing possession of property
Advowson	The right to appoint a cleric to a benefice
Alienation	Transfer of property
Amercement	A small fine levied by a manor court for some misdoing in the open field system. The person was in mercy of the lord.
Ancient demesne	Land that had belonged to the crown in 1066. The tenants had special privileges even though they were not tenants-in-chief.
Anilepman	A sub-tenant occupying a smallholding.
Appurtenances	The rights and duties belonging to a property e.g. submission to manor court, grazing rights, fines payable to lord, a pew in church.
Area measures	1 acre = 4 roods 1 rood = 40 square rods (poles or perches) 1 perch = 16½ feet
Assart	Land enclosed from former waste, especially woodland. See Intake.
Assignee	Person to whom rights are transferred
Assignment	The transfer to another of a right, interest or title to property
Assize of Morte D’Ancestor	A court that ensured that lords admitted tenants’ heirs to their lands.
Award	Final document detailing the commissioners’ or arbitrators’ decisions, produced in a process such as enclosure.
Ba(u)lk	A thin strip of grass in a common arable field, used for access and grazing.
Bailiff	Senior member of manor court, second to the steward. He often collected fines and amercements and did other jobs assigned by the court.
Bargain and sale	A deed, usually 16th century, transferring property and rendered valid by enrolment
Barring an entail	Preventing an entail from taking effect, formerly done by a common recovery but now by a simple deed
Barton farm	The home farm of the lord on his demesne land
Beast	Bullock or steer
Beast gate	The right to pasture one animal on the manorial common
Bedford Level	An area in East Anglia where a land registry was established in 1663.
Bequeath	Term used to leave personal property (personalty) by testament.
Bill	A draft Act of Parliament.
Bond	Agreement to pay a financial penalty if specified conditions are not met
Bond Tenants	Another name for copyholders or other customary tenants.
Borough English	Ultimogeniture; custom in certain ancient boroughs and manors in England where the youngest son inherited the copyhold or burgage tenement.
Bovate	Another name for oxgang, virgate or yardland
Building Society	A society of contributors to a fund for loan to members when buying a house
Burgage or Burgess Tenure	Type of tenure in a borough similar to freehold and often involving the payment of a uniform burgage rent for each plot.
Bushel	Imperial measure of capacity equal to 8 gallons.
Cadastral survey	One showing the extent, ownership and value of land for taxation purposes e.g. Tithe Survey
Calendar	Catalogue of documents with summaries of their contents
Candlemas	2nd February
Carr	Wet pasture reclaimed from fen
Cartulary	A register of lands and privileges granted by charter; most are for ecclesiastical bodies.
Carucate	Northern English term amount of land that could be ploughed by one team of 8 oxen in a year. Area depended on soil quality but approximately 120 acres. See Hide.
Castle Ward	Guard duty at the lord’s castle or primary residence
Chain	22 yards; the surveyors chain comprised 100 links. See Change and furlong.
Change	10 chains or 220 yards or 1 furlong.
Charity Deeds	Trust deeds for charitable purposes
Charter	A document recording a grant
Charter	Any document recording a grant of land or privileges
Charter Rolls	Records of royal grants of land or rights to boroughs, churches and families, by enrolment of copies of the originals from 1199-1537, after which they were succeeded by letters patent.
Chattels personal	Movable personal goods
Chattels real	Personal landholdings excluding freeholds
Chief rent	A fixed rent due from a freehold property.
Chirograph	A document written in duplicate or multiplicate on the same sheet, sometimes with the word chirograph (or Latin form cyrographum) written across the indenture lines.
Chivalry	Alternative name for Knight’s Fee
Christmas	One of the quarter days when rent was due; 25th December
Close	Small enclosed field near the village or farmsteads and not included in the open and common field system
Close Rolls	Records housed at TNA and originally folded (closed) and impressed with the Great Seal. They contain grants of the crown including enclosure awards, deeds poll, quit claims, enrollment of deeds, conveyances etc.1204/5 – 1903.
Closed parish	A parish with only a few, large landlords who controlled it due to early enclosure. They discouraged immigrant labourers from settling there; see open parish.
Common recovery	Also called a recovery. A collusive lawsuit used to destroy or alter an entail and recorded as anexemplification.
Concord	Duplicate record of a Final Concord
Conditional Surrender	The mortgage of a copyhold property
Conditional surrender	Mortgage of copyhold land
Consideration	The amount paid for land or property
Contingent remainder	A remainder limited in such a way as to depend on some event or condition that may never occur
Conveyance	Document effecting transference of property
Copy of Court Roll	The copy of the extract of the court roll recording the admission of a tenant to copyhold property
Copyhold	A type of tenure of land or property held by virtue of the evidence provided by a copy of the court roll.; and held in return for service, later commuted to cash payment.
Copyholder	One who holds his land by right of a copy of the manorial title. Customary Tenant
Corn Rent	Tithe rent charges i.e. payments in lieu of tithes; they varied with the price of corn (wheat).
Corporeal hereditaments,	Tangible inheritable property such as land and buildings
Cottier	An annual tenure of land let directly to a labourer making the highest bid for it.
Counterpart	The second half of an indenture which precisely matches the first part
County Archives	Synonymous with County Record Office
Court Baron	A manorial court dealing with transference of copyhold land, enforcing local customs and agricultural practice and settling minor disputes and debts involving less than 40 shillings.
Court of Augmentations	Court set up in 1536 to oversee the properties that had come to the crown from the dissolved religious houses.
Court Leet	Essentially a subsidiary hundred court. It dealt with criminal offences such as murder, treason, rape, arson, counterfeiting and burglary, which it then referred on to the county assizes, as well as common law offences for which it levied punishments, and it also appointed some local officials. It included the view of frankpledge
Court Roll or Book	Minutes of a manor court, originally on a long roll of parchment, later in book form.
Courtesy (of England)	A man’s life interest in his wife’s fee simple or fee tail after her death
Cow gate/gait	Right of pasture for one cow.
CRO	County Record Office otherwise County Archives
Croft	A farmstead with some enclosed land
Curtilage	Land immediately next to a building
Customary court	Manor court
Customary Freehold	Tenure where land was held by custom and not by will of the lord – a position between copyhold and freehold.
Customary tenant	Copyholder
Customs of the manor	The rules, obligations and rights of the particular manor
Customal or custumal	A list drawn up from time to time of the customs guiding administration and rents of a manorial or monastic estate.
Cyrographum	Latin for chirograph q.v.
Dead heriot	Fee paid to lord on death of a tenant where the latter had no beasts
Deed of feoffment	Written document accompanying a transfer of freehold land by livery of seisin.
Deed of grant	A simple conveyance transferring land.
Deed Poll	A deed by one person, or by several having exactly the same interest, as apart from in which there are interested parties of the first, second, or more parts. Examples include a trust deed or a change of surname. The word poll here means to cut smooth compared with the indented cuts on two (or more) - part indentures.
Deforciant	Defendant who prevents another from inheriting an estate. The vendor in a final concord
Demandant	The purchaser in a common'recovery
Demesne	The lord of the manor’s land held in his own hands, and worked by the villain tenants in return for their own holdings. Also known as the home or barton farm.
Demise	To convey a property by lease or on the death of the owner
Demise	To convey an estate either by will or lease, whether by fee simple, fee tail or for a term of life or years.
Devise	Term used to leave landed property by will.
Diem clausit extremum	An order authorizing an enquiry into the lands held by a tenant-in-chief at his death.
Disentail	To free from entail
Disseisin	Dispossession of land; forcible eviction.
Dissolution of monasteries	Henry VIII’s take-over of religious houses and lands in the 1530s.
Domesday Book	William the Conqueror’s 1086 report of his land holdings in most of England
Dorse	The back of a document
Dower	That part of a freehold estate, usually one third, that a widow could claim for life or until she remarried (see freebench).
Easement	A privilege without profit, e.g. a right of way which the owner of a property has over an adjoining one
Enclosure	a) Physical dividing up of former open fields or wastes by hedges, ditches, fences or walls. b) Legal process authorizing division of open fields and wastes.
Enclosure Award	Formal document, typically a large book, giving the terms of the enclosure or regrouping of land holdings.
Enclosure road	Straight roads, not of Roman origin, created during the enclosure period 1750-1850
Enclosure schedule	Document giving such details as the land-owners’ names, extent of holdings, nature of tenure (freehold, copyhold etc.) cross-referenced to the enclosure map.
Encroachment	The extension of a piece of private property to include part of the common or waste, or someone else’s property.
Endorsement	Writing on the back (dorse) of a deed, usually briefly describing its contents, and from 19th century noting the date and two principal parties.
Enfeoff or Infeoff	a) Put a tenant legally in possession of a property b) Surrender a property
Enfranchisement	Conversion from copyhold to freehold, allowed from 1841.
Engross	a) Put together two or more holdings into one. b) Write out a legal deed in formal script.
Enrol(l)ment	Registering an agreement or transaction into the records of a court
Entail	Estate settled with regard to the rules of descent; to a man and the heirs of his body as opposed to his heirs, as in fee simple.
Equity	System of law which originated in Court of Chancery. It supplements common law by providing a remedy where none exists at law.
Equity of redemption	Right of a mortgagor to redeem the property he has mortgaged, even if the due time for payment has passed. This right could be passed to someone else.
Escheat	Reversion to the superior lord
Escheator Royal	official appointed for a county to supervise escheats of land held by the king.
Estate Act	Private Act of Parliament used to disentail property and other such changes.
Estate map	Large-scale plan of the property of a single land-owner, whether of one farm or the vast lands of the wealthy.

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Information in this Wiki page is excerpted from the online course English: Land and Property Records including Manorial Documents and Maps offered by The National Institute for Genealogical Studies. To learn more about this course or other courses available from the Institute, see our website. We can be contacted at wiki@genealogicalstudies.com

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