Question

What was the relationship between the king and his tenants-in-chiefs?

Answer 1

In medieval and early modern Europe the term tenant-in-chief, denoted a person who held his lands under various forms of feudal land tenure directly from the king or territorial prince to whom he did homage, as opposed to holding them from another nobleman or senior member of the clergy. The tenure was one which denoted great honour, but also carried heavy responsibilities as the tenants-in-chief were originally responsible for providing knights and soldiers for the king's feudal army. Other names for tenant-in-chief were captal or baron, although the latter term came to mean specifically one who held in-chief by the tenure per baroniam, the feudal baron. The Latin term was tenens in capite; In most countries allodial property could be held by laypeople or the church, however in England after the Norman Conquest, the king became in law the only holder of land by allodial title; thus all the lands in England became the property of the Crown. A tenure by frankalmoin, which in other countries was regarded as a form of privileged allodial holding, was in England regarded as a feudal tenement. thanku