Abstract

The years between 1066 and the early thirteenth century were a time of definition and adjustment for English ecclesiastical property. Prior to this period church lands had been subject to obligations that apparently varied with the wealth and rank of each institution, and there was “no special ecclesiastical tenure.” The Conquest marked a turning point in the situation. Norman feudal tenure, explicitly based on the holding of lands for a render of service, effectually strengthened existing secular lordship; customary appropriations were consolidated in the hands of laymen as the receipt of the service and incidents of tenure. On the other hand, the establishment of the Norman monarchy coincided with the implementation of reform within the church, a movement that sought in part to modify, or even transform, feudal and proprietary demands made upon the church and its property. Factors such as these were eventually to influence the development of tenure “in free alms” , a mode of land-holding appropriate to the spiritual motives that prompted donations of land and revenues to churches, religious houses, hospitals, and other institutions. Lands held in frankalmoin were said to owe no secular service, and in certain circumstances they escaped the jurisdiction of secular courts. jQuery.click { event.preventDefault(); })