Tenure, a general name for the conditions on which land is held by the persons who occupy and use it. Forms of land tenure are of various kinds; the earliest of them are connected with the occupation of a tract of country by a tribe or village community; with the advance of civilisation individual rights were more precisely defined; under the Roman law land was a thing in commercio, to be used and disposed of at the discretion of the owner. The feudal system combined something of the precision of Roman law with the personal tie between lord and vassal as recognised in the customs of the barbarian nations. Rights in land were made the basis of social order; every man rendered definite services to the superior of whom he held. The Norman Conquest brought in a race of expert lawyers who would have carried feudal theory to an oppressive extreme if it had not been for the principles recognised in Magna Charta and afterwards embodied in legislation. All lands in England were, and still are, held of the crown; the actual owner or cultivator of the soil owed suit and service to the king or to some subject lord who held of the king. The Manor (q.v.) was the unit of administration. The tenures recognised by law were of three kinds: (1) Military tenures, such as knight-service, the chief incidents of which were the duty of serving in war, suit of court (attendance in the courts of the superior), aids, reliefs, and primer seisin (money payments on certain occasions), and escheat (reversion of the land to the lord on failure of heirs, &c.). The lord exacted a fine on alienation of the holding; he had the wardship of an infant heir, and as guardian disposed of his land in marriage. These tenures were extremely burdensome, and the feudal rights of the crown were greatly abused. At the restoration of Charles II. the military tenures were abolished, except only the honorary services of Grand Serjeanty (q.v.). (2) Free socage—the service of freemen who rendered fealty and suit of court, together with some fixed service, such as might be, and always was, commuted for a payment in money. This is the tenure on which freehold lands are still held. (3) Copyhold, the tenure of persons who originally were villeins or villagers holding at the will of the lord, but had gained a more secure position by the custom of the manor, and held copy of the court rolls on which their rights were recorded. Land assigned for the endowment of the church was held 'by divine service' or by the still easier tenure known as frankalmoign or free alms. In process of time feudal ideas of social order gave way to commercial ideas; land was regarded merely as a form of property to be used and disposed of at the discretion of its owners. Thus, though tenure still exists in England, it is of comparatively small importance. The distribution and management of land are governed by contract, not by feudal rule. Economists and lawyers hold for the most part that 'free trade in land' is justified by its results; Sir H. Maine points to the rapid settlement of North America as a sample of what can be done by men stimulated by the hope of acquiring property. Socialists and land-nationalisers hold that property in land is the cause of an unjust distribution of wealth; they would take all land (with or without compensation to existing owners) into the hands of the community, and they would permit no tenure except on such terms as the community might consider to be advantageous.
In Scotland, as in England, the feudal system was long established. Subinfeudation (grant of land by a free vassal to another person to hold under himself) has been forbidden in England since 1290, because it was found to prejudice the rights of superior lords; but the practice was permitted in Scotland. Modern Scots law distinguishes between the property or dominium utile of land and the superiority or dominium directum, the chief incident of which is the feu-duty paid by the vassal. On alienation of the land or death of the vassal forms were used implying consent or recognition by the superior, and casualties or additional payments were made on such occasions. These forms and the endless creation of subordinate feudal rights tended to complicate the whole system of conveyancing; but the law has been greatly simplified by recent statutes (see CONVEYANCING). In Ireland the English law displaced and abolished the customs of the Celtic tribes; but the country never was thoroughly feudalised, and the peasant farmers have always been hostile to English notions of free trade in land (see LAND LAWS). In the United States (except Louisiana) and in those British colonies which have been formed in countries previously unsettled the English law of tenure forms the historical basis of the local law; but in a new country there are of course neither lords nor vassals, and the phrases of the feudal law only serve to remind us that land is and always must be held under some governing authority, and on such terms as legislators may impose upon the owners and cultivators.
For the early history of tenure, see Coulanges, Origin of Property in Land (trans. by Ashley); Elton, Origins of English History; Skene, Celtic Scotland; and Richey, Irish Land Laws. For curious tenures on quaint and merely nominal conditions, such as bearing a silver jug and basin as often as the king might visit the lands granted, see Thomas Blount, Ancient and Jocular Tenures (1679; new ed. 1815). For a comparison of modern forms of tenure, Cliffe Leslie, Land Systems, and the Cobden Club Essays may be mentioned. See also the articles BLANCH, CHARTER, COPYHOLD, FEU, FEUDALISM, FREEHOLD, &c.