Manor

In the strict sense of the term, in English law, it signifies a tract of land held by ancient tenure, the distinguishing incident of which is that it was granted by the king to a lord, coupled with authority to hold within it a court-baron. A manor usually comprises property appropriate for various uses. The lord or great personage to whom it was granted kept to himself, from the first, such parts as were necessary for his own use, which were called terrce dominicales, mesne lands, again, part was retained in the actual occupation of the lord, and other portions were held in villenage; and there was also a portion which, being uncultivated, was called the lord's waste, and served for public roads and for common of pasture to the lord and his tenants. Thus, at the present day, a manor usually comprises a mansionhouse, arable land, pasture, meadow, woodland, and these in the occupation of the lord, or under rent to tenants; also, it may be advowsons and other incoi-poreal rights. In most manors at the present day, that species of tenants called copyholders are found, whose lands, though substantially their own property, are nominally part of the lord's demesnes. But a manor, in its proper and perfect state, also comprises land occupied by freehold tenants holding of the manor in perpetuity; for, unless freeholds to the amount of at least two subsist, the power to hold a court-baron is lost, and the legal character of the manor is extinguished. Hence it is said that a manor cannot now be made; for a court-baron cannot, under existing laws, be created anew; and, without a court-baron, the estate, however extensive and varied, is not, in the technical sense of the law, a manor. What is called a reputed manor seems to be an estate formerly a manor, but which has lost its strict legal right to that character, by cessation of its courtbaron. Under various decisions as to what will pass by a conveyance of a manor, it appears that, even without specifying " appurtenances," the word manor will pass: the demesnes, i.e. the lands of which the lord is seised within the manor; the freehold of all the lands held by copyhold or other customary tenants; the wastes; the fealty, suit of court, rents, and generally all the services; the court-baron, with fines and perquisites annexed thereto; the court-leet, with the like fines and perquisites; any franchises; and advowsons appendant. In some older parts of the United States, the interior of New York parholding upon payment of a fee-farni rent, in money or in kind, to tiie proprietor, called the patroon. Manor seems to be derived from the Prench manoir, or Latin manendo, because the lord did usually reside there. It is called tnanerium or manurium, because it is labored by handiwork. It is a noble sort of fee, granted partly to tenants for Certain services to be performed, and partly reserved to the use of the lord's family, with jurisdiction over his tenants for their farms. Touching the origin of manors, it seems that in the beginning there was a circuit of ground, granted by the king to some baron or man of worth, for him and his heirs to dwell upon, and to exercise such jurisdiction, more or less, within that compass, as he thought good to grant; performing such services, and paying such yearly rent for the same as were by his grant required; and that, afterwards, this great man parcelled his land to other meaner men, enjoining such services and rents as he thought good, and so, as he became tenant to the king, the inferiors became tenants to him. But in these days manor signifies the jurisdiction and royalty incorporeal rather than the land or site. Manors were formerly called baronies, as they still are lordships; and each lord or baron was empowered to hold a domestic court, called the court-baron, for redressing misdemeanors and nuisances within the manor, and for settling disputes of property among the tenants. This court is an inseparable ingredient of every manor. In early times, the king's greater barons, who had a large extent of territory held under the crown, granted out frequently smaller manors to inferior persons, to be holden of themselves, which do therefore now continue to be held under a superior lord, who is called, in such cases, the lord paramount over all these manors; and his seigniory is frequently termed an honor, not a manor, especially if it hath belonged to an ancient feudal baron, or hath been at any time in the hands of the crown. In imitation of this, these inferior lords began to carve out and grant to others still more minute estates, to be held as of themselves, and were so proceeding downwards in infinitum; till the superior lords observed that by this method of subinfeudation they lost all their feudal profits of wardships, marriages, and escheats, which fell into the hands of these mesne or middle lords, who were the immediate superiors of the terre-tenant, or him who occupied the land; and also that the mesne lords themselves were so impoverished thereby, that they were disabled from performing their services to their own superiors. This occasioned the enactment of successive statutes, particularly the statute of quia emptores, 18 Edw. I. ch. 1, prohibiting further subinfeudations, since which no new manors can have been by the operation of these statutes no tenant in capite since the accession of king Edward I., and no tenant of a common lord since the statute of quia emptores, could create any new tenants to hold of himself. Blackstone; Jacob.