In Medieval England, feudal estates generated taxes (in the form of incidents) upon the inheritance or granting of the estate.
Prior to the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, in the Anglo-Saxon era the law of land succession was customary. Land or folkland, as it was called, was held in allodial title by the group, meaning the group held the land. It was probably of little relevance when the titular head of the clan or family died. Traditional lands continued to be held in community by the group. The exact nature of allodialism as it existed in Anglo-Saxon England has been debated, but to no definitive end. On one side, it has been argued in the mark system, that Saxon allodialism was a highly idealistic socialist state. Countering this utopian view was Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges in his essay "The Origins of Property in Land", and Frederic William Maitland who found it to be inconsistent with extant Anglo-Saxon documents from pre-Norman times.
After the Norman Conquest, the rule became one of primogeniture inheritance, meaning the eldest surviving son became the sole heir of the baronial estate. The intent of primogeniture inheritance was to keep large land holdings in the hands of a relatively few, trustworthy lords. The other sons could be accommodated by becoming under-lords to the surviving heir. The eldest would accept the younger brothers "in homage" in return for their allegiance. This was a process called subinfeudation. Even commoners could subinfeudate to their social inferiors. Large pieces of land were given to the great lords by the Norman Crown. Land title under William was a life tenure, meaning the land would pass back to the Crown upon the death of the lord. These lands were then subinfeudated to lesser lords. Landholdings in England were of this pattern: large land grants issued to the great lords by the Crown. These were divided up among the younger sons, who then subinfeudated to lesser lords and commoners. These in turn "accepted in homage" their lessers who held even smaller parcels of land. Determining who owed what feudal incidences filled the court dockets for generations. With the passage of time, land tenures came to be inherited by the survivors of the great lords upon their deaths. Accompanying the Norman change in inheritance was a recognition of the ability of even the lowest of landholders the right of inheritance. In the 12th century, this custom was extended to the commoners. It was discovered that granting an interest in the passage of land to their children, commoners would tend the land with greater economy. The children of tenants were assured their inheritance in the land. This also meant, as a practicality, the land could be sold or bequeathed to the Church. The ancient method of the Normans was a grant to the Church in frankalmoin.
In English law after the Conquest, the lord remained a grantor after the grant of an estate in fee-simple. There was no land in England without its lord: "Nulle terre sans seigneur" was the feudal maxim. These grants were in turn subject to subinfeudation. The principal incidents of a seignory were an oath of fealty, a quit or chief rent; a relief of one year's quit rent, and the right of escheat. In return, for these privileges the lord was liable to forfeit his rights if he neglected to protect and defend the tenant or did anything injurious to the feudal relation.
The word "fee" is associated with the Norman feudal system and is in contradistinction to the Anglo-Saxon allodial system.
At the time of the Conquest, William I of England granted fiefs to his lords in the manner of a continental or feudal benefice which assured little beyond a life tenure. The English charters were careful to avoid saying the donee was to take the estate for life, or whether the heir was to have any rights. At this time, there is abundant evidence that lords refused to regrant on any terms to the deceased tenant's heirs; the deed phrase "to [A] and his heirs and assigns" is the product of efforts by purchasers to preserve such rights on behalf of those who might inherit or purchase the land from them. The practice of demanding a monetary payment for regranting of tenancy to the heirs quickly became the norm.
In 1100, the Charter of Liberties of Henry I of England contained the clause:
If any of my earls, barons or other tenants in chief die, his heir shall not redeem his land as he did in the time of my brother (i.e. William II of England), but shall take it up with a just and lawful relief. The men of my barons shall take up (relevabunt) their lands from their lords with a just and lawful relief.
Relief later was set at a rate per fee in the Magna Carta. By the time of Bracton, it was settled law that the word "fee" connoted inheritability and the maximum of legal ownership.
Allodial title constitutes ownership of real property (land, buildings and fixtures) that is independent of any superior landlord. Allodial title is related to the concept of land held "in allodium", or land ownership by occupancy and defense of the land. Historically, much of land was uninhabited and could therefore be held "in allodium".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allodial_title
Primogeniture is the right, by law or custom, of the legitimate, firstborn son to inherit his parent's entire or main estate, in preference to daughters, elder illegitimate sons, younger sons and collateral relatives. The son of a deceased elder brother inherits before a living younger brother by right of substitution for the deceased heir. In the absence of any children, brothers succeed, individually, to the inheritance by seniority of age (subject to substitution). Among siblings, sons inherit before daughters. In the absence of male descendants in the male-line, there are variations of primogeniture which allocate the inheritance to a daughter or a brother or, in the absence of either, to another collateral relative, in a specified order (e.g. male-preference primogeniture, Salic primogeniture, semi-Salic primogeniture).
The principle has applied in history to inheritance of real property (land) as well as inherited titles and offices, most notably monarchies, continuing until modified or abolished.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primogeniture
In English law, subinfeudation is the practice by which tenants, holding land under the king or other superior lord, carved out new and distinct tenures in their turn by sub-letting or alienating a part of their lands.
The tenants were termed mesne lords, with regard to those holding from them, the immediate tenant being tenant in capite. The lowest tenant of all was the freeholder, or, as he was sometimes termed tenant paravail. The Crown, who in theory owned all lands, was lord paramount.
The great lords looked with dissatisfaction on the increase of such subtenures. Accordingly, in 1290 a statute was passed, Quia Emptores, which allowed the tenant to alienate whenever he pleased, but the person to whom he granted the land was to hold it for the same immediate lord, and by the same services as the alienor held it before.
In English law, a fee simple or fee simple absolute is an estate in land, a form of freehold ownership. It is a way that real estate may be owned in common law countries, and is the highest possible ownership interest that can be held in real property. Allodial title is reserved to governments under a civil law structure. The rights of the fee simple owner are limited by government powers of taxation, compulsory purchase, police power, and escheat, and it could also be limited further by certain encumbrances or conditions in the deed, such as, for example, a condition that required the land to be used as a public park, with a reversion interest in the grantor if the condition fails; this is a fee simple conditional.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fee_simple
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The reign of Edward I is notable for three leading statutes, all passed in the interests of the superior lords. The 1279 the Statute of Mortmain was the first of a long series directed against the acquisition of land by religious and charitable corporations. In 1285 the statute De Donis Conditionalibus forbade the alienation of estates granted to a man and the heirs of his body, which before the statute usually became on the birth of an heir at once alienable, and so the lord lost his escheat. The statute Quia Emptores preserved those rights of the lords which were up to that time subject to be defeated by subinfeudation, by enacting that in any alienation of lands the alienee should hold them of the same lord of the fee as the alienor. Since 1290 it has been impossible to create an estate in fee-simple to be held of a mesne lord, or to reserve a rent upon a grant of an estate in fee (unless in the form of a rent-charge), or to create a new manor. The statute, however, does not bind the crown. The practical effect of the statute was to make the transfer of land thenceforward more of a commercial and less of a feudal transaction. The writ of elegit was introduced by the Statute of Westminster II in 1285 as a creditor's remedy over real estate. It has, however, been considerably modified by subsequent legislation.
The Statutes of Mortmain were two enactments, in 1279 and 1290, by Edward I of England aimed at preserving the kingdom's revenues by preventing land from passing into the possession of the Church. Possession of property by a corporation such as the church was known as mortmain. Mortmain literally means "the dead hand." In Medieval England, feudal estates generated taxes (in the form of incidents) upon the inheritance or granting of the estate.
If an estate was owned by a religious corporation that never died, attained majority, or became attainted for treason, these taxes were never paid. The Statutes of Mortmain were meant to re-establish the prohibition against donating land to the Church for purposes of avoiding feudal services which had been hinted at in the Magna Carta in 1215 and specifically defined in the Great Charter of 1217. John of England died shortly after the Magna Carta was signed. Henry III of England, the son of John, did not enforce these proscriptions. He showed great deference to the Church.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statutes_of_Mortmain
De donis conditionalibus is the chapter of the English Statutes of Westminster (1285). It originated the law of entail – forbidding a landholder to sell his land except to his heirs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_donis_conditionalibus
Quia Emptores is a statute passed in the reign of Edward I of England in 1290 that prevented tenants from alienating their lands to others by subinfeudation, instead requiring all tenants who wished to alienate their land to do so by substitution. The statute, along with its companion statute of Quo Warranto, was intended to remedy land ownership disputes and consequent financial difficulties that had resulted from the decline of the traditional feudal system during the High Middle Ages.
The statute takes its name Quia Emptores from the first two words of the statute in its original medieval Latin, and can be translated as "because the buyers".
By effectively ending the practice of subinfeudation, Quia Emptores hastened the end of feudalism in England, which had already been on the decline for quite some time. Direct feudal obligations were increasingly being replaced by cash rents and outright sales of land which gave rise to the practice of livery and maintenance or bastard feudalism, the retention and control by the nobility of land, money, soldiers and servants via direct salaries, land sales and rent payments. This would later develop into one of the underlying causes of the Wars of the Roses, the English civil wars fought by the House of York and House of Lancaster for control of the English Crown from 1455 to 1485. By the mid-fifteenth century the major nobility, particularly the Houses of York and Lancaster, were able to assemble vast estates, considerable sums of money and large private armies on retainer through post-Quia Emptores land management practices and direct sales of land. The two noble Houses thus grew more powerful than the Crown itself, with the consequent wars between them for control of the realm.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quia_Emptores
From 1290 to the reign of Henry VIII, there is no statute of the first importance dealing with real estate.
The reign of Henry VIII, like that of Edward I, is signalized by three acts, the effects of which continue to this day. The one which has had the most lasting influence in law is the Statute of Uses, intended to provide against secrecy of sales of land. As a necessary sequel, the Statute of Enrollments required all bargains and sales of land be duly enrolled. Bargain and sale was a form of equitable transfer which had for some purposes superseded the common law feoffment. It applied only to estates of inheritance and not to terms of years. The unforeseen effect of the act of 1535, Enrolment of Bargains of Lands, etc. was to establish as the ordinary form of conveyance until 1841 the conveyance by lease and release. Uses having become legal estate by the Statute of Uses, and therefore no longer devisable, the Statute of Wills (explained by the Wills Act of 1542) was passed to remedy this inconvenience. At least as late as 1911, it remained law as to wills made before 1838.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_English_land_law .
