feudal land tenure

In medieval and early modern Europe, a tenant-in-chief (or vassal-in-chief) was 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. The tenants-in-chief were originally responsible for providing knights and soldiers for the king's feudal army. Terminology The Latin term was tenens in capite. Other names for tenant-in-chief were "captal" or baron, although the latter term evolved in meaning. For example, the term "baron" was used in the Cartae Baronum of 1166, a return of all tenants-in-chief in England. At that time the term was understood to mean the "king's barons", or "king's men", because baron could still have a broader meaning. Originally, for example in Domesday Book (1086), there was a small number of powerful English tenants-in-chief under the Norman king who were all magnates directly associated with the king. Later, as laid-out by I. J. Sanders, the old tenancies-in-chief of England from the time of the Norman king, King Henry I of England, came to have a legally distinct form of feudal land holding, the so-called tenure per baroniam. The term "baron" thus came to be used mainly for these "feudal barons", which comprised a group that over-lapped with the tenancies-in-chief, but was not identical.