Seignory in the context of "Escheat"

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⭐ Core Definition: Seignory

In English law, seignory or seigniory, spelled signiory in Early Modern English (/ˈsnjəri/; French: seigneur [sɛɲœʁ] , lit.'lord'; Latin: senior, lit.'elder'), refers to the rights which a grantor retains after the grant of an estate in fee simple.

Nulle terre sans seigneur ("No land without a lord") was a feudal legal maxim; where no other lord can be discovered, the Crown is lord as lord paramount. The principal incidents of a seignory were a feudal oath of homage and fealty; a "quit" or "chief" rent; a "relief" of one year's quit rent, and the right of escheat. In return for these privileges, the lord was liable to forfeit his rights if he neglected to protect and defend the tenant or did anything injurious to the feudal relation.

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Seignory in the context of Lord of the manor

A lord of the manor, in Anglo-Saxon England and Norman England, is the landholder of a rural estate. The titles date to the English feudal (specifically baronial) system. The lord enjoyed manorial rights (the rights to establish and occupy a residence, known as the manor house and demesne) as well as seignory, the right to grant or draw benefit from the estate (for example, as a landlord). The title is not a peerage or title of upper nobility (although the holder could also be a peer) but was a relationship to land and how it could be used and those living on the land (tenants) may be deployed, and the broad estate and its inhabitants administered. The title continues in modern England and Wales as a legally recognised form of property that can be held independently of its historical rights. It may belong entirely to one person or be a moiety shared with other people. The title is known as Breyr in Welsh.

In the British Crown Dependencies of Jersey and Guernsey the equivalent title is Seigneur.

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