The Evolving Landscape of Land Ownership in England and Wales
Throughout England’s rich history, the distribution and ownership of land has undergone a remarkable transformation, reflecting the complex interplay between the Crown, feudal lords, and the common people. From the Norman Conquest to the modern era, the methods of acquiring, transferring, and documenting land rights have evolved dramatically, leaving behind a trove of records that offer valuable insights into the lives and legacies of our ancestors.
The Feudal System and Manorial Courts
Following the Norman Conquest in 1066, the land of England was technically owned by the Crown. Under the feudal manorial system, the Crown granted land to earls and barons, who in turn granted smaller areas to knights in exchange for military service. Over time, this service was commuted to a money payment called ‘scutage’, and by the end of the thirteenth century, feudal tenure had largely disappeared.
These landholders, known as ‘tenants-in-chief’, might sublet portions of their land to other men in return for similar services. If the tenant-in-chief and the recipients held administrative courts for their villages, those villages were called manors. The manor court was used to enforce and regulate the labor services of the ‘villeins’ or subtenants, who held their land by agricultural service, produce, or cash.
By 1500, the villeins had become the copyholders of the manor, and the lord of the manor typically had two courts: a court leet, which dealt with petty law and order matters, and a court baron, which dealt with land leased from the manor by copyhold. The remnants of manorial jurisdiction continued into the twentieth century, but the importance of the manor had greatly diminished by the early seventeenth century.
Transferring Ownership and Documenting Title
In early times, the usual method of transferring freehold land was by ‘livery of seisin’, a symbolic act of transfer witnessed by the community. Copyholders would similarly deliver a rod or wand to the lord of the manor or his steward, who would pass it to the new tenant. As the practice of using written deeds became more common, a growing chain of documentation was built up, including former conveyances, deeds of bargain and sale, copies of entries on manor rolls, probate copies of wills, and other records that proved a person’s ownership and rights to land.
The legal documents that proved a person’s ownership and/or rights to land came to be called their title deeds. These bundles of deeds, many stretching back hundreds of years, were eventually made redundant by the 1925 Act of Parliament, which decided that those to whom property had been conveyed within the last thirty years did not need to provide evidence of their title going back more than thirty years. Many of these deeds were destroyed, but those that survived can now be found in county record offices, accessible through the nationwide catalogue Access to Archives (A2A).
Registering Land Ownership
Although the authorities in the City of London and many other borough towns recorded transfers of land from early times, and there were other attempts to introduce some form of deeds’ registration, only the counties of Yorkshire and Middlesex had registries of deeds such as were known from early times in Scotland and Ireland. England and Wales did not introduce a national registry until 1862, and even then, registration was voluntary. Compulsory registration began only in 1899 and is still far from complete, making it frequently a major problem to trace the ownership, descent, and transfer of land in England and Wales.
Domesday Book and Other Land Records
The first general survey of the land of England, known as Domesday Book, was compiled by order of William the Conqueror in 1086. This invaluable record provides a wealth of information about landholders, their subtenants, and the nature of the land, but it is not entirely complete, lacking coverage in some major towns and several counties.
After Domesday Book, there is a period of a hundred and fifty years in which the descent of land can only be traced, if at all, with the greatest difficulty. However, a variety of records in The National Archives, normally in abbreviated Latin before 1733, may provide relationships, including:
- Patent Rolls: Grants and confirmations of lands by the Crown to private individuals and public bodies from 1201 to 1702
- Close Rolls: Deeds between private persons enrolled on the payment of fees from the 14th century onward
- Inquisitions Post Mortem: Records of the lands held by those who died holding land direct from the Crown
Collusive Actions and Land Transfers
Because an entry on the rolls of one of the royal courts was regarded as binding upon all persons, it became customary to create and transfer interests in land by bringing collusive actions in the Court of Common Pleas. These included the Final Concord or Fine, in which the purchaser alleged that the seller had agreed to sell the property but failed to do so, and the Recovery, in which the purchaser brought a case against the vendor to ‘recover’ the property.
The Statute of Enrollments in 1535 required that the transfer of freehold land be by deed and that these deeds be enrolled either in one of the Courts at Westminster or with the Clerk of the Peace of the appropriate county in Quarter Sessions. However, this obligation was often circumvented, and historians believe that in most English villages and towns, property and land was conveyed through the manor courts.
Enclosure and the Changing Landscape
In the Tudor period and particularly in the midland counties, the complete amalgamation of farms, often for the more profitable conversion from arable to pasture, became a problem known as engrossment. This process, which replaced many ploughmen with a few shepherds, was recognized as a great evil but met with little success in attempts to reverse it.
Often, following engrossment and the exchange or purchase of strips in the open fields, enclosure by general agreement of the owners would take place. Enclosure was actively promoted in the midland counties in the sixteenth century and was fiercely resisted, causing great deprivation and disruption to the old style of communal husbandry. In some regions, such as the West Country and parts of the Midlands, the effects were less marked due to the larger areas of woodland and moorland.
From 1604 onwards, enclosure was sometimes brought about by private Act of Parliament, and in 1836, a General Inclosure Act was passed to ease the procedures. The later enclosures, with their characteristic square or rectangular fields, left a lasting mark on the landscape, and the records of the allotment of land, known as the ‘award’, are either in the county record office or in The National Archives.
Taxes, Hearth Tax, and Land Ownership
One of the most significant national records that provides a fair listing of occupiers of houses in England and Wales is the Hearth Tax, introduced in 1662 and collected twice a year until 1689. While many people were exempt, the assessments generally include even the exempted hearths, giving some idea of the relative wealth of the people in the parish.
By the late 1680s, it is estimated that perhaps a quarter to a third of all the land was owned by small proprietors, mostly working their own holdings. However, there was a trend away from smaller to larger estates over the next two hundred years, and by 1873, the amount farmed by smallholders had declined to about a tenth of the whole. The terminology also changed, with ‘husbandmen’ and ‘yeomen’ giving way to ‘farmers’.
Estate Records and the Closed Village
The records of large landowners, whether private individuals, corporations, or institutions, can be an invaluable source of information for the genealogist. These estate records may include surveys, rentals, leases, and other documents that provide details about the property, its tenants, and the administration of the estate.
In parishes where the land was owned by one man or a small group of men, the ‘closed’ or ‘close’ villages that emerged were often characterized by paternalistic control, the exclusion of poor immigrant laborers, and the lack of public houses, disorder, and nonconformist chapels (unless the landowner was nonconformist). The estate records of these large landowners can be a rich source of information about the lives and circumstances of their tenants.
By exploring the evolving landscape of land ownership in England and Wales, we can gain valuable insights into the lives and experiences of our ancestors, from the feudal manors to the enclosure movements and the rise of larger estates. The records left behind, from Domesday Book to the estate documents of great landowners, offer a wealth of information for the dedicated family historian.
