Topic summary
Feudal superior
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Examples of feudalism.
Scotland
The system of land tenure in Scotland was until recently feudal. In theory, this meant that the land was held under The Crown as the ultimate feudal superior. Historically, The Crown would make a grant of land in return for military or other services and the grantees would in turn make sub-grants for other services and so on. Those making grants – the "superiors" – retained a legal interest in the land ("dominium directum"), and so a hierarchical structure was created with each property having several owners, co-existing simultaneously. Only one of these, the vassal, has what in normal language would be regarded as ownership of the property ("dominium utile").