Rethinking Fantasy Feudalism: Land Tenure for the Nobility
Welcome to quite possibly the most esoteric post I've ever written. I recently went down a rabbit hole of research on what land ownership looked like in the late medieval period, ostensibly for worldbuilding purposes for my own game. Should this show up in most TTRPGs? Probably not, unless your group really wants to play "housing lawyers" as your preferred genre. Did I spend way too much time trying to make sense of this? Yes. Did I talk to the homeowners I know to ask about modern landowning? Yes. Did I have a whole "property is theft" moment? Absolutely.
This was going to be just one article, but I was well over 2000 words and hadn't touched half of what I wanted to write about, so I'm dividing it in half. You're still getting a hefty article. Today, I'll talk about ownership by the wealthy--how nobles owned land. Next week, I'll talk about forms of ownership more common to the lower classes, and what "ownership" looked like when a nobleman technically owned the land you worked and lived on.
Want to read more about rethinking fantasy tropes by digging into the real history? Check out my ongoing series below:
So, without further ado, I'm going to talk about my findings: what are the various forms in which people could own land (particularly in a British/European medieval-early modern blend that is the root of a lot of Western fantasy)? It is a lot more varied than it is today. And, just to make this not a complete waste of everyone's time, I'm also going to suggest some plot hooks for how you can use this not just in your worldbuilding, but to create conflict in a TTRPG or novel.
Some Terms and Categories
First, I want to define a few terms that I'll be using as pretty standard "metrics" for your rights over the land. In modern America (and most of Europe, though I'm less familiar with present day conditions in Europe), you tend to have either all of these or none of these, but as we'll see, there's a lot more nuance to the concept of "ownership" in the past than there is today.
Inheritable: This one should be pretty obvious. Can you pass the title of the land to an heir or successor, as you want? My parents could will me and my sister their house when they die, leaving us free to sell it/do whatever we want with it. But I cannot leave my apartment to a hypothetical child, because if I died, my rented apartment would revert back to my landlord.
Alienable: Can I sell my land/house that I own? Can I put it up for rent? Again, as an example, my parents could sell their house or rent it out. But I cannot sell my apartment, because it does not really belong to me.
Term: Can someone kick you out of your land? How long do you get to own the land? We usually think of "owning" to mean that you have this permanently/indefinitely.
Dues: I'm going to use the term dues to mean any sort of payment that you need to make to keep hold of the land. For example, to keep my apartment, I need to pay the "due" of rent, which I pay to my landlord.
Types of Ownership
One note on the form of this ownership: you can have multiple overlapping conditions to your tenure. You could have land that is both fee simple (you owe money) and serjeanty (you owe particular services) as a condition for the land.
Fee Simple or Socage
We're going to begin with the type of land ownership that most people probably understand the best when they think of owning land. Fee simple, or "freeholding," is what my parents have for their house or what the local grocery store that owns their building "outright" has for their building. If you own a farm, you probably have it as a freehold.
In history, people did have freeholds: they might own a farm, directly from the king. This was considered pretty prestigious, and it exempted you from a lot of the annoying stuff we'll talk about next week.
Beyond these small farmers, many nobles or gentry (lower nobility, basically) also owned their land as a form of freeholding – they owned their land, and they paid dues to the King in the form of money, which is the definition of fee simple ownership. When nobles owned land (and certain governmental powers) under this rule, it was normally called Socage, instead of freeholding, because nothing is allowed to be simple.
Inheritable: Fee simple ownership is inheritable. My parents can pass their house along to me when they die.
Alienable: Fee simple ownership is alienable. My parents can sell their house, or they can rent it out and give someone else the right of use for it.
Term: Indefinitely/permanently, though the government can claim it under "eminent domain" laws for public works projects, at least under U.S. law (I'm not familiar with eminent domain law internationally).
Dues: Here's where I'm going to make my boldest claim. My parents need to pay property taxes on their house in order to keep it (not to mention a mortgage, but that's just a loan, so you don't have to pay that forever). This may seem like it is different from other dues, like rent, but it is not really. So, your dues for fee simple is... your "fee," an amount of money based on the value of that property, as assessed by the true owner of the land--the government.
Allodial Ownership
The government is the true owner of the land? Surely not, you say. They have a right to govern, but they don't own my house/farm/whatever. Wrong. The government has what is called "allodial title" to all land over which it is considered sovereign. When William the Conqueror conquered England in 1066, he claimed the allodial title for all of England for himself. This allodial title is, in a lot ways, the basic claim for a government to make: I own the land, therefore I can make rules for the use of that land--things like laws, taxes, etc. Is that the only way to conceptualize the right to govern? No. Is it the best way when you are specifically thinking about land tenure? I think so.
Allodial title just means "true ownership," and it is only in very rare cases that it does not belong to the government. There's some islands in Europe/Britain that maintain individuals having an allodial title to a plot of land, where the government legally does not have the right to come in and seize it with eminent domain laws or charge property taxes or anything of that sort, but this is exceptionally rare.
Inheritable: Yes, though most kingdoms by the late medieval period had conceptualized a fictional entity called the "Crown" which owned the allodial title to the land, instead of the title passing directly from one king to the next. Similarly, in the U.S., it is the United States government that is the allodial landholder, or the states themselves, rather than the current President or Governor.
Alienable: Yes, theoretically... but what government is going to sell off its right to own/govern its own land? The main way allodial title is transferred is through war.
Term: Permanent.
Dues: None. The allodial owner is the owner. There is no higher authority that must be payed.
The existence of the allodial title is why "fee simple" ownership needs to pay property taxes. You don't technically own the land; you're renting from the government/allodial owner for an indefinite term, with provisions for you being able to pass on that rent to an heir, to sell it, etc.
Knight-Service
What about those lords? What earned you the right to be landlord over some large swath of the country? The basic concept is that the medieval period was dangerous and violent. If you promised to defend the land and fight in your king's wars, they would reward you with land. Often, this came with a title: Baron of whatever.
Inheritable: Yes, your title and lands would pass down to your heirs, though under some weird laws--I'll write more about this another week, because there's a whole slate of laws about who can inherit and whether you can disinherit someone.
Alienable: Sort of. You could not sell off your obligations for service nor the land to which it entitled you. This was an obligation from the king; once you'd been granted it, it would need to be revoked and returned to the king in order for you to be rid of it entirely. That said, you could alienate your USE of it; you could offer up burgage plots or leaseholds on the land that you were granted (which we'll talk about next week).
Term: Permanent, except in cases of treason. Usually this was not only permanent for you, but for your heirs as well, until your "line" goes "extinct."
Dues: A certain number of soldiers, typically including yourself, to go fight when the grantor of the land calls you to war. You would recruit some of your commoners, either forcing them or paying them, you'd outfit yourself with a horse, and you'd go fight. In the later middle ages, this started to die out, as you could offer money rather than going and fighting yourself. The King could use that money to pay mercenaries or professional soldiers. Over time in the modern period, this means that those landlords gradually just became fee simple owners, paying money instead of military service, equivalent to a property tax.
Frankalmoin
Another form of land ownership for a large magnate was Frankalmoin. This was specifically for land given to the Church. The Church would own land like any other feudal noble, just with their own particular dues.
Inheritable: Sort of. The land was owned by the Church--a specific abbey, monastery, bishopric, or whatever form of church existed there. That's a form of institutional ownership, like the concept of "the Crown," so the bishop would not own their land and pass it to a child or to the next bishop; instead, the Church would own it, with the particular person acting as a sort of steward for the land while they lived there.
Alienable: Sort of. The Church could sell off Church property, but I don't have any examples of land being held Frankalmoin of being sold off directly. Again though, like Knight-Service land, it could be divided and leased out in leaseholds or burgages (which we'll talk about next week).
Term: Permanent.
Dues: Prayer for the king's wellbeing and giving alms (charity) to the poor in the area. This sounds silly to us in the modern day, but prayer and alms were seen as essential for the defense of the King. I've written before– and probably will again– about how we don't really do religion justice in a lot of TTRPGs and worldbuilding, but this was seen as a totally fair deal. Frankalmoin tenure will evolve into a modern form of landownership too, where nonprofits and churches are tax-exempt. Churches today don't pay property tax, which (if you want to discount prayer as a form of payment) is basically the condition of Frankalmoin.
Serjeanty
Another term of land tenure is what is called Serjeanty. This is a service rendered to the grantor, usually the king.
Inheritable: Yes, much like Knight-Service.
Alienable: Like with Knight-Service, your obligations are not alienable or for sale. However, you can rent it out to commoners (which we'll talk about next week), which is alienating the use of the land in a lot of ways.
Term: Permanent, typically to you and your heirs, though "life tenure" land is not uncommon for serjeanty, where the land reverts to the grantor (usually the King) upon the death of the grantee.
Dues: Acts of service to the grantor. For example, a noble might be obligated to string the king's bow for him on a hunt.
Use in Worldbuilding & TTRPGs
Those are most of the major forms of land ownership that operated under feudalism that I found. Feudalism is a system built around exceptions and negotiations, so there's always going to be unique rules for particular plots of land.
For worldbuilding, you should use these different forms of tenure to make more interesting nobles, particularly if you want to give land to your party as an opportunity to run a Bastion/base/etc (you can read more about my thoughts on bastions in my article from a few weeks ago on downtime). Land and title should never be granted just as a reward, with nothing expected in return--that simply did not happen, and it would be a waste of resources for the king or existing lord.
Instead, have that person give them land under one or more of these tenures. It is still a system that will profit the lord, because they can now collect money from the commoners living on the land. But imagine a cleric who is now bound to pray for (and use divine magic to help reinforce) the King's rules under Frankalmoin. What serjeanty service might they be assigned, requiring them to regularly go to the King's court to hold a silver goblet for them at dinner at a particular monthly feast? Will the party be willing to go fight in defense of the evil kingdom because the noble background fighter inherited the estate of his father and a failure to show up for military duty means that the fighter's land and income that has been bankrolling the PCs would be forfeit? Or simply, what does it mean to be granted land but see a significant portion of their income siphoned away to the king, as "taking money" from the party is a surefire way to irritate them.
I particularly have enjoyed using this to flesh out NPC dynamics. In one of my kingdoms, serjeanty is used essentially as a "tax exemption" for a noble's land tax (the land that they hold in freehold/socage). This means that the family that are the Royal Clothiers, responsible for designing the Queen's Wardrobe, have more income than a lot of other nobles, because they're annually paying less in tax than many of their peers thanks to this service. And because this is a grant in serjeanty, it is permanent to the noble family; the fact that the current clothier and the current Queen hate each other does not end the clothier's duty, and so conflict exists as the Queen would love to end their tax exemption while the noble family outfits the Queen in stuffy clothes that make her look out of touch, but are technically within the boundaries of their serjeanty duties. Is that a petty conflict? Absolutely. But that is the sort of conflict that nobility should have.
Conclusion
Next week, we're going to delve into what I think is more interesting: the life of common folk. How did commoners "own" land when all land technically belonged to a lord, since landholding and nobles' involvement in local government were intrinsically linked under the feudal system? But establishing the modes of noble tenure first is, I think, important to understand how land was then "given" to commoners.
Stay tuned!