Enfeoffen

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Formally granting a person a feudal estate or freehold in land in return for service or homage
2. Investing a vassal with ownership of land under the old feudal system, in exchange for loyalty
3. Conveying a hereditary landholding to a tenant, as was done under medieval feudal tenure

Etymology: "Enfeoffen" is the Middle English form of "enfeoff," a verb meaning to give someone a fee, which in medieval law meant a heritable grant of land held in return for military or other service. The word comes from Anglo-Norman "enfeoffer," formed from the prefix "en-" ("put into") and "fief" or "fee," itself from Old French "fief," which may trace to a Germanic source related to the idea of livestock or movable property as wealth. The sense that matters most is legal. A fee in this sense was not a payment but a tenure: the lord kept ultimate ownership while the vassal held the land and owed duties in return. To enfeoff someone was thus to bind them to the lord through land, so the verb carried the whole social structure of feudal obligation within it.