WEEK ONE: FEUDALISM AND POSSESSIVE DERIVATIVE TITLE

Question 1

What does English property law begin with?

Answer 1

The Norman conquest of 1066

Question 2

What is the starting point of the history of the common law and the law of property in England?

Answer 2

Also the Norman conquest of 1066

Question 3

What were the events of the Norman Conquest?

Answer 3

William the Conqueror, the Duke of Normandy, sailed with his army to Hastings and defeated the reigning Anglo-Saxon King.

Question 4

When William the Conqueror’s army was not large enough to station a general in every corner of the land, what did he do instead?

Answer 4

He asserted ownership of all the land and instituted this system where existing landowners were allowed to stay on and control that land but only in return for loyalty to the new king.

Question 5

How was this loyalty of the English people towards their new King shown?

Answer 5

Tax and military services.

Question 6

What is the feudal system in shorter words?

Answer 6

A social and economic system that evolves around land.

Question 7

What is radical title?

Answer 7

A specific ownership of land by the Crown. All land is ultimately owned by the Crown. This ownership has been granted by God.

Radical title is the property law element of sovereign power.

Question 8

What other titles of land exist other than radical title?

Answer 8

Every other kind of title to land is an inferior kind to the Crown’s radical title and is technically just a grant of use of land from the Crown in return for services.

It is also known as derivative title, since it derives from the King’s radical title.

Question 9

Who made up the feudal pyramid?

Answer 9

The King.
The nobles.
The Knights.
The Peasants.

Question 10

How were nobles connected to the feudal pyramid?

Answer 10

The nobles were given large areas of land by the Crown in return for providing money, soldiers and knights to the Crown. Nobles are given counties of land which is then divided into parcels.

Question 11

How were knights connected to the feudal pyramid?

Answer 11

Knights were given control of these parcels of land in return for protection and military services.

Question 12

How were peasants connected to the feudal pyramid?

Answer 12

The knights divide the land into even smaller parcels and the peasants are allowed to be there in exchange for foods and services. Peasants did not get a wage, they were allowed to stay on the land controlled by the people above them in the feudal pyramid.

Question 13

Which groups can be considered tenants in the feudal system?

Answer 13

Everyone other than the King is a form of tenant. The landlord-tenant relationship has origins in this system.

Question 14

What is tenure? (key word)

Answer 14

The relationship between the social classes in the pyramid is referred to as tenure. The services offered in return for something else.

In short, tenure is the conditions in which you are allowed to occupy a piece of land.

Question 15

Which group have the lowliest form of tenure?

Answer 15

The peasants.

Question 16

Who grants all the different form of tenure?

Answer 16

The Crown.

Question 17

When was the tenure system established?
Will it ever be discarded?

Answer 17

From the Norman Conquest of 1066.

Since England has not been reinvaded by a foreign power our landlord system has not changed or discarded.

Question 18

What economic system has changed in the present day however?

Answer 18

Our economic system is now capitalist rather than Feudal.

Socially, our roles are different. Social mobility exists and one can gain access to classes they were not born in.

Question 19

What are some principles that remain the same in the present day and derive from 1066?

Answer 19

Radical title and tenure.

Question 20

What was the Domesday Book 1083 and what is its relevance?

Answer 20

Domesday Book 1083 contained 1300 settlements and details of who was in charge of which areas of land.

It is relevant because clearly William saw his ownership of the land was linked to his sovereignty.

Question 21

What crucial detail is the Domesday Book 1083 got missing?

Answer 21

A codification of rules which states how land disputes should be dealt with. The Domesday Book 1083 only contains who was in each land at the time.

Question 22

What did William the Conqueror achieve by asserting ownership of all the land?

Answer 22

A new system of land and property.

Jeremy Bentham: “property and law are born and must die together. Before the laws there was no property, take all the laws, all property ceases.”

Question 23

Why did land law develop differently from the law of things?

Answer 23

Land was the basis of power within the feudal system.

Question 24

What did QUEA EMPTORES (1290) establish concerning the selling and buying of land?

Answer 24

Outlawed sub-ineudation, which means that it was no longer allowed for a vassal at the bottom of the feudal pyramid to create a new form of tenure.

Instead, land could only be alienated, which means that it could only be given away from one person through substitution of one vassal either through inheritance or from buying and selling

Question 25

What did QUEA EMPTORES (1290) introduce but the TENURES ABOLITION ACT (1660) later formalised?

Answer 25

The exchanging of money for land. Which established by QUEA EMPTORES (1290) was a method of substitution.

However in the TENURES ABOLITION ACT (1660), money would become the only payment permissible for landholding.

Question 26

What did the TENURES ABOLITION ACT (1660) estabish?

Answer 26

This act established that money would be the only payment permissable for landholding.

This does not abolish the feudal structure but ushers us towards the new land market that we have now. Instead of the King → Baron → Vassal model that emerged from Quea Emptores.

Land ownership from 1660 looked like: King → Tenants in Chief.

There is no distinction between other social hierarchies under the king, instead we are all equally referred to as tenants in chief and we still do not own anything.

Question 27

What did the LAND REGISTRATION ACT 2002 establish?

Answer 27

Establishes that the Crown is the only absolute owner of Land in England and Wales. All others hold an estate in Land.

Question 28

What does estate mean? (key word)

Answer 28

The estate refers to the slice of time on the land.

If it is a freehold estate, that slice of time is indefinite.

If it is a leasehold estate, that slice of time is definite (you know when it ends).

Question 29

Why are some titles known as derivative?

Answer 29

All titles below radical title are derivative in the sense that they derive from the radical title of the king.

They also derive from the title of the previous owner.

Question 30

Where does the possessory nature of common law titles stem from?

Answer 30

William’s radical title is said to have come from God, but it has actually come from him killing the last King, from asserting possession and taking control of sovreign.

Question 31

Why do some people say that the basis of all property law is violence?

Answer 31

It is rooted from the violence of the Norman conquest.

Question 32

How was the violent nature of possessing a common law title applied by criminal courts at a localised level?

Answer 32

Through enclosures which ended the rights of common use of land. Land became enclosed by asserting exclusive control sometimes violently.

The enclosures were enabled by parliament but took place on the ground via forceful acts of seizing possession and peasants were forced permanently and subject to the death penalty.

Question 33

What does the use of enclosures reveal about common law titles?

Answer 33

Common law titles are not only based on possession but also the maintenance of possession. It has to be repeatedly maintained and sustained.

If you did not attempt to maintain your possession common law titles, it is not guaranteed forever.

Question 34

Why are common law titles not guaranteed forever?

Answer 34

It’s possession had to be maintained sometimes violently.

And because common law titles are derivative and therefore not absolute, it is only relative, since it is derived from the Crown.

Question 35

What are the two ingredients for title of land in common law?

Answer 35

Possession and tenure.

Question 36

What are the facts of Asher v Whitlock?

Answer 36

Thomas Williamson took possession of a piece of land in 1842 in Bedford. In 1850, he built a cottage and there he lived with his wife and daughter until his death in 1860. He left the cottage to his wife Lucy and daughter Mary Anne. Lucy remarried in 1861 so Mary Anne gained possession of the land through inheritance. Both daughter and mother died and Williamson’s sister and Mary Anne’s aunt became her heir-at-law. Lucy’s husband, the defendant, still occupied the property until 1865, when Mary Anne’s aunt brought an ejectment against him.

Question 37

What was the legal issue in Asher v Whitlock?

Answer 37

Whether

Question 38

What was the decision of Asher v Whitlock?

Answer 38

The plaintiff (Mary Anne’s heir-at-law) was entitled to recover the whole property

Question 39

What is the legal reasoning used in Asher v Whitlock?

Answer 39

The reasoning used was that the possession of land gave the possessor rights to everyone but the true owner of the property. The judges use the case of Doe v Dyball to make this case. In Doe v Dyball ‘one years possession by the plaintiff was held good against a person who came and turned him out’ . Therefore, Asher has best possession, as Whitlock is simply trying to dispossess the plaintiff of her property

Question 40

What is the legal relevance of Asher v Whitlock?

Answer 40

Establishes that possessory title is hereditary
Establishes the validity of possessory title

Question 41

Text: The new enclosure

What is Jesse Goldstein’s summary of enclosures?

And what does it suggest?

Answer 41

“Enclosure really did provide a route out of feudal domination but it also really did lead to the immiseration and dispossession of the vast amount of rural families”

This suggests that the