Tenant-in-chief

In medieval and early modern European society a tenant-in-chief, sometimes vassal-in-chief, denotes the nobles who held their lands as tenants directly from the monarch, as opposed to holding them from another nobleman or senior member of the clergy.^[1] Sometimes they were styled a Such people were the backbone of the monarchs' influence throughout the state and include princes and dukes (many of whom would have been immediate relatives of the monarch), and earls.^{[citation needed]} They could also be called baron or captal.^[2] The Latin term was tenant in capiti,^[3] or in capite.^[4] Tenants-in-chief were situated under the monarch, whether a king or another territorial prince, in the feudal system, and a tenant-in-chief did homage directly to the king or prince.^[2]

In English history, the lands held by a tenant-in-chief were called an honour. In the great feudal survey Domesday Book, tenants-in-chief were listed first in each counties entry.^[1]

A tenant-in-chief could enfief, or grant fiefs, to his own followers, and this process of creating subfiefs under a tenant-in-chief or other fief-holder was known as subinfeudation.^[3]

The term is actually a neologism of later historians.

See also

Fee simple

Citations

Sources

• Bloch, Marc (1964). Feudal Society Volume 2: Social Classes and Political Organization. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-05978-2. 
• Coredon, Christopher (2007). A Dictionary of Medieval Terms & Phrases (Reprint ed.). Woodbridge: D. S. Brewer. ISBN 978-1-74384-138-8. 
• Cosman, Madeleine Pelner (2007). Medieval Wordbook: More the 4,000 Terms and Expressions from Medieval Culture. New York: Barnes & Noble. ISBN 978-0-7607-8725-0. 

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