Lord of the manor in the context of "Château"

Stratford-upon-Avon (/ ... ˈeɪvən/ ... AY-vən), also known simply as Stratford, is a market town and civil parish in the Stratford-on-Avon district, in the county of Warwickshire, in the West Midlands region of England. It is situated on the River Avon, 91 miles (146 km) north-west of London, 22 miles (35 km) south-east of Birmingham and 8 miles (13 km) south-west of Warwick. The town is the southernmost point of the Arden area at the northern extremity of the Cotswolds. At the 2021 census Stratford had a population of 30,495.

Stratford was inhabited originally by Britons before Anglo-Saxons and remained a village before the lord of the manor, John of Coutances, set out plans to develop it into a town in 1196. In that same year, Stratford was granted a charter from King Richard I to hold a weekly market in the town, giving it its status as a market town. As a result, Stratford experienced an increase in trade and commerce as well as urban expansion.

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 serjeanty, depending on which form of tenure (i.e. feudal tenancy contract) the estate was held under. The highest overlord of all, or lord paramount, was the monarch, who due to his ancestor William the Conqueror's personal conquest of the Kingdom of England, owned by inheritance from him all the land in England under allodial title and had no superior overlord, "holding from God and his sword", although certain monarchs, notably King John (1199–1216) purported to grant the Kingdom of England to Pope Innocent III, who would thus have become overlord to English monarchs.

A paramount lord may then be seen to occupy the apex of the feudal pyramid, or the root of the feudal tree, and such allodial title is also termed "radical title" (from Latin radix, root), "ultimate title" and "final title". William the Conqueror immediately set about granting tenancies on his newly won lands, in accordance with feudal principles. The monarch's immediate tenants were the tenants-in-chief, usually military magnates, who held the highest status in feudal society below the monarch. 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.

Manorialism, also known as seigneurialism, the manor system or manorial system, was the method of land ownership (or "tenure") in parts of Europe, notably France and later England, during the Middle Ages. Its defining features included a large, sometimes fortified manor house or castle in which the lord of the manor and his dependants lived and administered a rural estate, and a population of labourers or serfs who worked the surrounding land to support themselves and the lord. These labourers fulfilled their obligations with labour time or in-kind produce at first, and later by cash payment as commercial activity increased. Manorialism was part of the feudal system.

Manorialism originated in the Roman villa system of the Late Roman Empire, and was widely practised in medieval western Europe and parts of central Europe. An essential element of feudal society, manorialism was slowly replaced by the advent of a money-based market economy and new forms of agrarian contract.

The landed gentry (also known as the squirearchy or simply gentry) is a largely historical British and Irish social class of landowners who could live entirely from rental income, or at least owned a country estate. The British element of the wider European class of gentry, while part of Britain's nobility and usually armigers, the gentry ranked below the British peerage in social status. Nevertheless, their economic base in land was often similar, and some of the landed gentry were wealthier than some peers. Many gentry were close relatives of peers, and it was not uncommon for gentry to marry into peerage. With or without noble title, owning rural land estates often brought with it the legal rights of the feudal lordship of the manor, and the less formal name or title of squire, in Scotland laird.

Generally lands passed by primogeniture, while the inheritances of daughters and younger sons were in cash or stocks, and relatively small. Typically the gentry farmed some of their land through employed managers, but leased most of it to tenant farmers. They also exploited timber and minerals (such as coal), and owned mills and other sources of income. Many heads of families also had careers in politics or the military, and the younger sons of the gentry provided a high proportion of the clergy, military officers, and lawyers. Successful burghers often used their accumulated wealth to buy country estates, with the aim of establishing themselves as landed gentry.

Sir Richard Grenville (b. 1542 – d. 1591), also spelt Greynvile, Greeneville, and Greenfield, was an English privateer and explorer. Grenville was lord of the manors of Stowe, Cornwall and Bideford, Devon. He subsequently participated in the plantations of Ireland specifically the Munster plantations, the English colonisation of the Americas and the repulse of the Spanish Armada.

Grenville also served as Member of Parliament for Cornwall, High Sheriff for County Cork and Sheriff of Cornwall. In 1591, Grenville died at the battle of Flores fighting against an overwhelmingly larger Spanish fleet near the Azores. He and his crew on board the galleon Revenge fought against the 53-strong Spanish fleet to allow the other English ships to escape. Grenville was the grandfather of Sir Bevil Grenville, a prominent military officer during the English Civil War.

Johan van Oldenbarnevelt (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈjoːɦɑɱ vɑn ɔldə(m)ˈbɑrnəvɛlt]; 14 September 1547 – 13 May 1619), Heer van Berkel en Rodenrijs (1600), Gunterstein (1611) and Bakkum (1613), was a Dutch statesman and revolutionary who played an important role in the Dutch struggle for independence from Spain.

Van Oldenbarnevelt was born in Amersfoort. He studied law at the universities of Leuven, Bourges, Heidelberg, and Padua, and traveled in France and Italy before settling permanently in The Hague. He favored William the Silent in his revolt against Philip II of Spain, and fought in William's army. In his later years he was a supporter of the Arminians during the religious-political controversy which split the young Dutch Republic. He was the founder of the Dutch East India Company.

A demesne (/dɪˈmeɪn, -ˈmiːn/ di-MAYN, -⁠MEEN) 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 sub-enfeoffed by him to others as sub-tenants. In contrast, the entire territory controlled by a monarch both directly and indirectly via their tenant lords would typically be referred to as their realm. The concept originated in the Kingdom of France and found its way to foreign lands influenced by it or its fiefdoms.

In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, royal demesne is the land held by the Crown, and ancient demesne is the legal term for the land held by the king at the time of the Domesday Book in 1086.