The feudal system, in which the land was owned by a monarch, who in exchange for homage and military service granted its use to tenants-in-chief, who in their turn granted its use to sub-tenants in return for further services, gave rise to several terms, particular to Britain, for subdivisions of land which are no longer in wide use. These medieval land terms include the following: Feudalism comes from the Late Latin word feudum, itself borrowed from a Germanic root *fehu, a commonly used term in the Middle Ages which means fief, or land held under certain obligations by feodati. ... Look up monarch in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Vassal in chief, or the more common term Tenant in Chief, denotes the high nobles who held their lands directly from the King (as opposed to holding them another nobleman or churchman). ...

• a burgage, a plot of land rented from a lord or king
• a hide: the hide originally referred to the land-holding that supported a family in the early medieval period, sharing its roots with words used to describe related issues, such as the family deriving directly from the sexual relationship between a man and a woman. The hide was later used to define areas of land, which could vary from 60 to 120 old acres (approximately 30 modern acres) depending somewhat on the quality of the land. The hide was not ubiquitous in Anglo-Saxon England, with land in Kent being assesed in sulungs (appoximately twice the size of the average hide).
• a Knight's fee: is the amount of land for which the services of a knight (for 40 days) were due to the Crown. It was determined by land value, and the number of hides in a Knight's Fee varied.
• a hundred: a division of an English shire consisting of 100 hides. The hundreds of Stoke Desborough and Burnham in Buckinghamshire are known as the Chiltern Hundreds.
• a franconian Lan used in Poland since the 13th century, consisted of 43.2 morgs = 23 to 28 hectares. The term Lan was also used to indicate a full-sized farm, as opposed to one split up into a number of smaller sections.
• a wapentake: a subdivision of a county used in Yorkshire and other areas of strong Danish influence. It is similar to hundred or a ward. It was used in Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Rutland.
• a rape: Sussex was divided into six rapes, which were intermediate divisions between the county and the hundred. A rape was to have its own river, forest and castle.
• a lathe: Kent was divided into five lathes, from the Old English laeth, meaning district.
• a riding: was a division of land in Yorkshire equivalent to a third of the shire. The name is derived from the Old Norse thriding, meaning "one-third".
• a ward: a ward is a subdivision of a shire, equivalent to a wapentake or a hundred. It was used in Northumberland, Cumberland, Westmorland, and Durham.

a tenure under which property in England and Scotland was held under the king or a lord of a town was maintained for a yearly rent or for rendering a service such as watching and warding This article is a stub. ... The hide was a variable unit of land area used in medieval England, defined according to its arable yield and taxable potential rather than its exact dimensions. ... This article is about the unit of measure known as the acre. ... Knights fee is a feudal term used in medieval England to describe the value of land. ... The silver Anglia knight, commissioned as a trophy in 1850, intended to represent the Black Prince. ... A hundred is an administrative division, frequently used in Europe and New England, which historically was used to divide a larger region into smaller geographical units. ... A shire is an administrative area of Great Britain and Australia. ... The Chiltern Hundreds date back to the 13th century. ... For other uses, see Franks (disambiguation). ... £an ( pronunciation one) in polish means field, a unit of land measurement used in Poland since the 13th century, the value of which varied form area to area. ... A hectare (symbol ha) is a unit of area, equal to 10 000 square metres, commonly used for measuring land area. ... A wapentake is a term derived from the Old Norse, the rough equivalent of an Anglo-Saxon hundred. ... Look up Yorkshire in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Look up Yorkshire in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs) is a county in the east of England. ... Nottinghamshire (abbreviated Notts) is an English county in the East Midlands, which borders South Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Leicestershire and Derbyshire. ... Derbyshire is a county in the East Midlands of England. ... Leicestershire (IPA: , abbreviated Leics) is a landlocked county in central England. ... Oakham Castle Rutland is traditionally Englands smallest county and is bounded on the west and north by Leicestershire, northeast by Lincolnshire, and southeast by Northamptonshire. ... Sussex is a historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. ... Pierrefonds Castle, France Castle has a history of scholarly debate surrounding its exact meaning. ... A lathe was an administrative division of the county of Kent, in England, from the Anglo-Saxon period until it fell entirely out of use in the early twentieth century. ... This article is about the county in England. ... In the British Isles since Anglo-Saxon times, a riding is traditionally a sub-division (especially in three) of a county, in Australia analogous. ... Old Norse or Danish tongue is the Germanic language once spoken by the inhabitants of the Nordic countries (for instance during the Viking Age). ... A ward is an electoral district used in local politics, most notably in England, Scotland, and Wales, as well as Australia, Canada, the Republic of Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa and many cities in the United States and the federal district of Washington, DC. Wards are usually named after neighbourhoods... Northumberland is a county in northern England. ... Cumberland is one of the 39 traditional counties of England. ... Westmorland (formerly also spelt Westmoreland, an even older spelling is Westmerland) is an area of north west England and one of the 39 historic counties of England. ... County Durham is a county in north-east England. ...

External link

• Medieval English Towns - Glossary