Lady of the manor

In Anglo-Irish history, the lordship of a manor is a lordship emanating from the feudal system of manorialism. In modern England and Wales it is recognised as a form of property, one of three elements of a manor that may exist separately or be combined, and may be held in moieties:

A title similar to such a lordship is known in French as Seigneur du Manoir, Welsh as Breyr, Gutsherr in German, Godsherre in Norwegian and Swedish, Ambachtsheer in Dutch and Signore or Vassallo in Italian. In Italy, especially in the kingdom of Sicily before 1812, the feudal title signore was often used; like its English equivalent, it came into wide use under the Normans as seigneur.

Historically a lord of the manor might be a tenant-in-chief if he held a capital manor directly from the Crown; otherwise he was a mesne lord if he did not hold directly from the Crown, yet had his own tenants. The origins of the lordship of manors arose in the Anglo-Saxon system of manorialism. Following the Norman conquest, land at the manorial level was recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 (the Normans' registry in Italian was called the Catalogus Baronum, compiled a few years later). The title cannot nowadays be subdivided. This has been prohibited since 1290 in the Statute of Quia Emptores that prevents tenants from alienating their lands to others by subinfeudation, instead requiring all tenants wishing to alienate their land to do so by .

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