In
feudal
Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was a combination of legal, economic, military, cultural, and political customs that flourished in Middle Ages, medieval Europe from the 9th to 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of struc ...
Anglo-Norman England and Ireland, a knight's fee was a unit measure of land deemed sufficient to support a
knight
A knight is a person granted an honorary title of a knighthood by a head of state (including the pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church, or the country, especially in a military capacity.
The concept of a knighthood ...
. It would not only provide sustenance for himself, his family, and servants, but also the means to furnish himself and his
retinue
A retinue is a body of persons "retained" in the service of a noble, royal personage, or dignitary; a ''suite'' (French "what follows") of retainers.
Etymology
The word, recorded in English since circa 1375, stems from Old French ''retenue'', ...
with horses and armour to fight for his
overlord
An overlord in the English feudal system was a lord of a manor who had subinfeudated a particular manor, estate or fee, to a tenant. The tenant thenceforth owed to the overlord one of a variety of services, usually military service or ...
in battle. It was effectively the size of a
fief
A fief (; ) was a central element in medieval contracts based on feudal law. It consisted of a form of property holding or other rights granted by an overlord to a vassal, who held it in fealty or "in fee" in return for a form of feudal alle ...
(or "fee" which is synonymous with "fief") sufficient to support one knight in the ongoing performance of his
feudal duties
Feudal duties were the set of reciprocal financial, military and legal obligations among the warrior nobility in a feudal system. Translated into English by Philip Grierson as ''Feudalism'', 1st ed., London, 1952. These duties developed in bot ...
(
knight-service
Knight-service was a form of feudal land tenure under which a knight held a fief or estate of land termed a knight's fee (''fee'' being synonymous with ''fief'') from an overlord conditional on him as a tenant performing military service for his ...
).
A knight's fee cannot be stated as a standard number of
acre
The acre ( ) is a Unit of measurement, unit of land area used in the Imperial units, British imperial and the United States customary units#Area, United States customary systems. It is traditionally defined as the area of one Chain (unit), ch ...
s, as the required acreage to produce a given crop or revenue would vary depending on many factors, including its location, the richness of its soil and the local climate, as well as the presence of other exploitable resources such as a
fishing weir,
quarries of rock, or mines of minerals. If a knight's fee is deemed coterminous with a
manor, an average size would be between 1,000 and 5,000 acres, of which much in early times was still "waste", forest and uncultivated moorland.
Creation
A knight's fee could be created by the king himself or by one of his
tenants-in-chief by separating off an area of land from his own
demesne
A demesne ( ) or domain was all the land retained and managed by a lord of the manor under the feudal system for his own use, occupation, or support. This distinguished it from land subinfeudation, sub-enfeoffed by him to others as sub-tenants. ...
(land held in-hand), which process when performed by the latter was known as
subinfeudation
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 ...
, and establishing therein a new
manor for the use of a knight who would by the process of
enfeoffment
In the Middle Ages, especially under the European feudal system, feoffment or enfeoffment was the deed by which a person was given land in exchange for a pledge of service. This mechanism was later used to avoid restrictions on the passage of t ...
become his tenant by paying
homage and fealty to his new overlord. This homage and fealty was a vow of loyalty to his overlord, with corresponding vow of protection received, and an undertaking to provide a specified form of service commonly due under
feudal land tenure in England. Broadly speaking such service was either military (
knight-service
Knight-service was a form of feudal land tenure under which a knight held a fief or estate of land termed a knight's fee (''fee'' being synonymous with ''fief'') from an overlord conditional on him as a tenant performing military service for his ...
) or non-military (
serjeanty
Under feudalism in France and England during the Middle Ages, tenure by serjeanty () was a form of tenure in return for a specified duty other than standard knight-service.
Etymology
The word comes from the French noun , itself from the Latin ...
, etc.). Military service was generally to a maximum of 40 days per annum, signifying that he would have to fight for his overlord in battle. No cash rent was payable, although military service was later transformable into
scutage
Scutage was a medieval English tax levied on holders of a knight's fee under the feudal land tenure of knight-service. Under feudalism the king, through his vassals, provided land to knights for their support. The knights owed the king militar ...
. A knight was required to maintain the dignity of knighthood, which meant that he should live in suitable style and be well-turned out in battle, with the required number of
esquires to serve him and with horses, arms and armour for all.
Used as a unit for tax assessment
A feudal
tenant-in-chief of the king was assessed for certain
feudal aids according as to how many knight's fees he
held, whether tenanted or held in demesne. Where a knight's fee was inherited by joint heiresses, the fee would be split into two or more
moieties, that is two separate parts, each a manor of itself with its own
manorial court
The manorial courts were the lowest courts of law in England during the feudal period. They had a civil jurisdiction limited both in subject matter and geography. They dealt with matters over which the lord of the manor had jurisdiction, primar ...
, each deemed half a knight's fee, and so-on down to smaller fractions. Thus a magnate could be overlord to, say, 12 knight's fees.
Subinfeudation
A knight's fee was not only originally created by the process of subinfeudation, but could itself be split into smaller units by the same process, otherwise than through inheritance. By this means, until the practice was outlawed in 1290 by the statute of ''
Quia Emptores
is a statute passed by the Parliament of England in 1290 during the reign of Edward I of England, Edward I that prevented Tenement (law), tenants from Alienation (property law), alienating (transferring) their lands to others by subinfeudati ...
'', a knight could create his own feudal retainer who would pledge fealty to him rather than to the overlord. Such a holding was termed a sub-fee.
It can thus be seen that the knight's fee was the base unit of land valuation for use in the feudal system.
See also
*
Examples of feudalism for historic examples of knight's fees
*
Seigneurialism
References
*Sally Harvey, "The Knight and the Knight's Fee in England", ''Past and Present'', No. 49. (Nov., 1970), pp. 3–43. {{JSTOR, 650206
Feudalism