A mesne lord () was a lord in the feudal system who had vassals who held land from him, but who was himself the vassal of a higher lord. Owing to Quia Emptores, the concept of a mesne lordship technically still exists today: the partitioning of the lord of the manor's estate among co-heirs creating the mesne lordships. A mesne lord did not hold land directly of the king, that is to say he was not a tenant-in-chief. His subinfeudated estate was called a "mesne estate" or Afterlehen in the Holy Roman Empire.
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The tenants-in-chief usually held multiple manors or other estates from the monarch, often as feudal barons (or "barons by tenure") who owed their royal overlord an enhanced and onerous form of military service, and subinfeudated most to tenants, generally their own knights or military followers, keeping only a few in demesne. This created a mesne lord – tenant relationship. The knights in turn subinfeudated to their own tenants, creating a further subsidiary mesne lord – tenant relationship. Over the centuries for any single estate the process was in practice repeated numerous times.
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Erchenbald or Archembald was a mesne lord listed in the Domesday Book of 1086 as a tenant of nine manors in Devon and Cornwall, England. He is believed to be the first English ancestor of the prominent Fleming family.
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The concept of land tenure has been described as a "spatial fragmentation of proprietary interests in land". No one person could claim absolute ownership of a parcel of land, except the Crown. Thus the modern concept of "ownership" is not helpful in explaining the complexity of the distribution of rights. In relation to a particular piece of land, a number of people had rights: first, the tenant in demesne with possessory rights; second the mesne lord to whom the tenant owed services; third, a tenant in chief to whom the mesne lord owed services; and finally the Crown who received services directly from the tenant in chief.
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In May 1229 Abbot Richard of Hales sued Margaret to acquit him of the services he owed to the bishop for Harborne and Smethwick. She did not appear to answer the summons and the case was postponed. In January 1230 her attorney appeared in court to deny that she was the mesne lord, or intermediate holder of the land between the bishop and abbey: a claim which the abbot did not dispute. This was a fictitious claim to establish that the abbot was the lord of the two manors, holding them directly from the bishop: in 1284 the abbot of Halesowen was listed as holding one quarter of a knight's fee in Harborne and Smethwick of the bishop, for which he paid one mark, with no mention of a mesne lord.
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Under the feudal system, "lord" had a wide, loose and varied meaning. An overlord was a person from whom a landholding or a manor was held by a mesne lord or vassal under various forms of feudal land tenure. The modern term "landlord" is a vestigial survival of this function. A liege lord was a person to whom a vassal owed sworn allegiance.
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Hugh de Turberville was from the Turberville family of Crickhowell, Brecknockshire, Wales. From 1271 to 1272 he served as the Seneschal of Gascony. Hugh held Crickhowell Castle from 1273, as mesne lord, the vassal of Reginald FitzPiers. As a knight of the royal household of King Edward I of England, he was one of the commanders during the campaign against Wales during 1277.
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The village is mentioned in the Domesday Book as Schipetune in the Yarlestre hundred under the manor of Topeclive, (Topcliffe). At the time of the Norman invasion, the manor was owned by Bernwulf and afterwards by William of Percy. In 1086 there were 35 villagers. The overlordship remained with and followed that of Topcliffe, but there were grants as mesne lord to various families over the centuries.
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A mesne lord was the level of lord in the middle holding several manors, between the lords of a manor and the superior lord. The sub-tenant might have to provide knight-service, or finance just a portion of it, or pay something purely nominal. Any further sub-infeudation was prohibited by the Statute of in 1290. Knight-service was abolished by the Tenures Abolition Act 1660.
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In Dungleddy, the Flemings settled under the leadership of a man named Wizo, who proceeded to build and live at Wiston Castle. Wizo began to grant estates from the land he had been given to his followers, and one such mesne lord was granted the land at Picton, which was three miles to the south of Wiston. This Fleming was not a great historical figure and his name is not recorded.
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Henry of Grosmont, 1st Duke of Lancaster had no sons, so when he died in 1361 the Pontefract manor at Cassington passed to one of his daughters, Blanche of Lancaster, wife of John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster. There is no surviving record of the lordship of this manor thereafter. By 1123 the mesne lord of one of Wadard's manors was King Henry II's chamberlain Geoffrey de Clinton.
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Talbot also held the manor of Pollicott in Ashendon. When Gilbert Talbot, 5th Baron Talbot died in 1419 he left the manors of Pollicott and Addingrove to his widow Beatrice, who was baroness in her own right until her death in 1421. The two manors were again recorded together in 1432 and 1446, but no subsequent records are known. Walter Giffard's mesne lord was Hugh de Bolebec, whose heirs were the Earls of Oxford.
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Copyhold tenure was a form of customary tenure of land common in England from the Middle Ages. The land was held according to the custom of the manor, and the mode of landholding took its name from the fact that the "title deed" received by the tenant was a copy of the relevant entry in the manorial court roll. A tenant – or mesne lord – who held land in this way was legally known as a copyholder.
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After her death, Richard II granted Standlake to William Montacute, 2nd Earl of Salisbury. Standlake belonged to John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster by 1388 and was recorded as part of the Duchy of Lancaster until early in the 16th century. In 1086 FitzOsbern's mesne lord was Anchetil de Greye, who also held Rotherfield Greys in South Oxfordshire. The mesne lordship remained with the de Greyes until 1192, when John de Greye died without a male heir and his holding Standlake passed to his daughter Eve.
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68 Certain freehold and copyhold hereditaments and leasehold tenements of Henry Belward Ray were left in his will to infants with whom he – (the testator) – had no blood relation. To ensure that Ray's land would not escheat to the Crown, in March 1860, his trustees presented a petition to the Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain to create an Act of Parliament which would legally allow Arthur Lupton, Esq. of Potternewton Lodge undivided moiety, i.e. the rights of a mesne lord of the manor of Potternewton, and not the exclusive ownership of a lord paramount.
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It would seem likely that the castle was founded in the 12th century as a motte and bailey by one of the Hoptons as a mesne lord of the Says of Clun Castle. It's very possible that Walter de Hopton built the stone castle during the Barons' War of the 1260s. The bailey was fortified in stone and an impressive rectangular two-storey keep was built. The last Walter Hopton died during the Wars of the Roses and the castle passed by marriage to the Corbet family of Moreton Corbet castle.
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In the Domesday Book of 1086 the twin holdings of Loxhore were two of at least four manors held in Devon by the Norman magnate Robert de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Leicester, Count of Meulan (c. 1040/50-1118) as a mesne lord from Baldwin de Meulles.Thorn, Caroline & Frank, Domesday Book, Vol. 9, Devon, Morris, John, (general editor), Chichester, 1985, Part 2, (notes) 16,65 William the Conqueror had granted Robert about 91 English manors in several counties as recompense for his service in the Norman conquest of England.
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Historically a lord of the manor could either be a tenant-in-chief if he held a capital manor directly from the Crown, or a mesne lord if he was the vassal of another lord. The origins of the lordship of manors arose in the Anglo-Saxon system of manorialism. Following the Norman conquest, land at the manorial level was recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 (the Normans' registry in Sicily was called, in Latin, the Catalogus Baronum, compiled a few years later). The title cannot nowadays be subdivided.
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A liberty was an English unit originating in the Middle Ages, traditionally defined as an area in which regalian right was revoked and where the land was held by a mesne lord (i.e. an area in which rights reserved to the king had been devolved into private hands). It later became a unit of local government administration. Liberties were areas of widely variable extent which were independent of the usual system of hundreds and boroughs for a number of different reasons, usually to do with peculiarities of tenure.
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Two oxgangs of land in Walton belonged to King Edward the Confessor in 1066, and after the Norman conquest, was the demesne of Roger de Busli and Albert Grelley. The manor passed in about 1130 to Henry de Lacy of Pontefract and was later granted to the Banastres and their successors the Langtons. John de Langton obtained the right to hold a weekly market and an annual fair in October in 1301. The manor passed from the Langtons to the Hoghtons of Hoghton who held the manor as mesne lord.
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A mound southeast of the parish church marks the site of the house, and there are remains of the earthworks for the fishponds in a field to the south. By 1235 Wadard's other manor at Cassington was part of the honour of Saint Valery, which by 1300 belonged to Edmund, 2nd Earl of Cornwall. However, by 1414 it was part of the Honour of Wallingford. By the end of the 12th century the mesne lordship of the manor had been divided and after 1247 the mesne lord of one part granted it to Godstow Abbey.
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The land forfeited to the Conqueror was re-granted by him to be held by knight-service due to the king, not to the mesne lord as in European continental feudalism. In 1086 at the council of Salisbury all the landholders swore fealty to the crown. In the full vigour of feudalism the inhabitants of England were either free or not free. The free inhabitants held their lands either by free tenure or by a tenure which was originally that of a non-free inhabitant, but attached to land in the possession of a free man.
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The statute Quia Emptores18 Edw. I. c. 1 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.
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Richard de Bradwall (living before 1232 in the time of King John) was the first of two families to settle in the manor of Bradwall, becoming the mesne lord of a moiety of the manor. He was succeeded by Reginald de Bradwall, followed by a line of three Richards, until Richard de Bradwall who married Elizabeth (daughter of Thomas de Sandbach), had three daughters, and his male line became extinct. At one time, Richard owned the Elworth Estate located partly in Bradwall, which he passed to his son Thomas de Helleworth, in about the time of Edward I (1239–1307). The family coat of arms is not certain.
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Hugh Turberville, who held Crickhowell Castle from 1273, not as tenant-in-chief but as mesne lord, also held the position of Seneschal of Gascony. Hugh's services were called upon by King Edward I of England to train Welsh men-at-arms and transform the royal levy into a disciplined medieval army capable of conquering Wales; he led both cavalry and 6,000 infantry recruited in the Welsh Marches for King Edward's forces. He was later Constable of Castell y Bere in Merionethshire. He fought against Rhys ap Maredudd during his rising from 1287 to 1291, and died in 1293, the last of the family in the direct line.
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In the Anglo-Norman shires and liberties, the cantred was originally a unit of subinfeudation; a magnate or tenant-in-chief who received a grant from the King of England as Lord of Ireland would typically grant a cantred or half- cantred to a baron as mesne lord, who would hold the chief manor and grant sub-manors to his tenants. Church land within a cantred was excluded from grants. Unlike a knight's fee, there was no military service in the feudal duties of a cantred. The cantred was used for administrative purposes, with the serjeanty for law enforcement, the eyre for law courts, and collection of scutage and other taxes organised by cantred.
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However, with time and the loss of records (except in the case of former copyhold land), it came to be assumed that most land was held directly of the Crown.Megarry, Wade and Harpum (2012), The Law of Real Property (8th Edition), 2-018 (p.29)Does feudalism have a role in 21st century land law? (Charles Harpum) The title of a mesne lord remained a legal entity throughout the 19th century; in 1815, Encyclopaedia Londinensiss records that a "Lord mesne is the owner of a manor and by virtue thereof hath tenants holding of him in fee, and by copy of court roll; and yet holds himself of a superior lord called Lord Paramount".
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When the feoffee sub-enfeoffed his holding, for example when he created a new manor, he would become overlord to the person so enfeoffed, and a mesne lord (i.e. intermediate lord) within the longer historical chain of title. In modern English land law, the theory of such long historical chains of title still exists for every holding in fee simple, although for practical purposes it is not necessary at the time of conveyance to recite the descent of the fee from its creation. By the early 20th Century it had become traditional to show the chain of former owners for a minimum period of 15 years only, as occupation for 12 years now barred all prior claims.
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In 1279 Ralph Peverel held 3½ virgates in demesne and 2 virgates in villeinage, from his immediate feudal overlord a certain "Thomas de Langton", who in turn held of Richard Burdet, who held of Robert de Tateshall, who held of Ralph Basset, the tenant-in-chief. The Bishop succeeded Ralph Peverel as the principal tenant of the Basset fee, by a grant from Richard de Pydyngton, mesne lord and in 1300 he received a royal grant of free warren "over his demesne lands in Langton and Thorpe Langton". In 1307 his lands were declared forfeit, but in 1309 he is recorded as holding ¼ of a knight's fee in Thorpe Langton. On his death he held only 3 acres at Thorpe Langton.
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In the late Georgian era, William Lupton was one of a number of central Leeds landowners with a mesne lord title, some of whom, like him, were textile manufacturers. At the time of his death in 1828, Lupton occupied the enclosed fields of the manor of Leeds, his estate including a mill, reservoir, substantial house and outbuildings. The railway network constructed around Leeds, starting with the Leeds and Selby Railway in 1834, provided improved communications with national markets and, significantly for its development, an east–west connection with Manchester and the ports of Liverpool and Hull giving improved access to international markets. Alongside technological advances and industrial expansion, Leeds retained an interest in trading in agricultural commodities, with the Corn Exchange opening in 1864.
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Paramount (derived from the Anglo-French word paramont, which means 'up above', or par a mont, meaning 'up or on top of the mountain') is the highest authority, or that being of the greatest importance. The word was first used as a term of feudal law, of the overlord, the lord paramount, who held his fief from no superior lord, and was thus opposed to a mesne lord, one who held fief from a superior."Paramount is a word used in our law, signifying the highest lord of the fee, of lands, tenements or hereditaments" in The Common Law Common-Placed, by Giles Jacob 1726. p.351 Those who held their fiefs from one who was not a lord paramount were given the correlative term "paravail", (from par aval, meaning 'in the valley').
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A tenement (from the Latin tenere to hold), in law, is anything that is held, rather than owned. This usage is a holdover from feudalism, which still forms the basis of property law in many common law jurisdictions, in which the monarch alone owned the allodial title to all the land within his kingdom. Under feudalism, land itself was never privately "owned" but rather was "held" by a tenant (from Latin teneo "to hold") as a fee, being merely a legal right over land known in modern law as an estate in land. This was held from a superior overlord, ( a mesne lord), or from the crown itself in which case the holder was termed a tenant-in-chief, upon some manner of service under one of a variety of feudal land tenures.
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Such persons are therefore correctly termed "land-holders" or "tenants" (from Latin teneo to hold), not owners. If held freely, that is to say by freehold, such holdings were heritable by the holder's legal heir. On the payment of a premium termed feudal relief to the treasury, such heir was entitled to demand re-enfeoffment by the king with the fee concerned. Where no legal heir existed, the logic of the situation was that the fief had ceased to exist as a legal entity, since being tenantless no one was living who had been enfeoffed with the land, and the land was thus technically owned by either the crown or the immediate overlord (where the fee had been subinfeudated by the tenant-in- chief to a mesne lord, and perhaps the process of subinfeudation had been continued by a lower series of mesne-lords) as ultimus heres.
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The principle of commuting for money the obligation of military service struck at the root of the whole system, and so complete was the change of conception that tenure by knight-service of a mesne lord becomes, first in fact and then in law, tenure by escuage (i.e. scutage). By the time of Henry III, as Bracton states, the test of tenure was scutage; liability, however small, to scutage payment made the tenure military. The disintegration of the system was carried further in the latter half of the 13th century as a consequence of changes in warfare, which were increasing the importance of foot soldiers and making the service of a knight for forty days of less value to the king. The barons, instead of paying scutage, compounded for their service by the payment of lump sums, and, by a process which is still obscure, the nominal quotas of knight- service due from each had, by the time of Edward I, been largely reduced.
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In the Domesday Book of 1086 Ascerewelle (Shirwell) was one of at least four manors held in Devon, but merely as a mesne lord from Baldwin de Meulles, by the Norman magnate Robert de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Leicester, Count of MeulanThorn, Part 2, 16,65 (c. 1040/50 – 1118), to whom had been granted by William the Conqueror about 91 English manors in several counties for his service in the Norman Conquest of England. These four manors tenanted by Robert are listed consecutively within the section in Domesday Book listing Baldwin's holdings, as Shirwell, Ashford and two manors called Loxhore, thought to correspond to today's adjacent settlements of Higher Loxhore and Lower Loxhore. Robert is listed as the tenant of Shirwell simply as "Robert", but his next three holdings are listed in the Exon Domesday with Robert's appellation de Bello Monte added (the Latinised form of de Beaumont), in the form "Robert de Beaumont also holds..." This leaves no doubt that Shirwell too refers to Roger de Beaumont.
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