Dominicum

Lat. Domain; demain; demesne. A lordship. That of which one has the lordship or ownership. That which remains under the lord's immediate charge and control. Spelman. Property; domain; anything pertaining to a lord. Cowell.

In ecclesiastical law. A chnrch, or any other 'imllding consecrated to God. Du Cange.

I. I In old English law. Demesne, demain or domain; that of which one was lord or master; demesne lands, lauds which remained under the lord's immediate control; the estate of a free tenant. Dominicum antiquum: ancient demesne.

Lat. Domain; demain; demesne. A lordship, That of which one has the lordship or ownership. That which remains under the lord's immediate charge and control. Spelman. Property; domain; anything pertaining to alord. Cowell.

In ecclesiastical law. Achurch, or any other building consecrated to God. Du Cange.

/. A demesne; the demesne lands; a lordship, seigniory; the estate of a free tenant; a church.

Lat. [from dominus, lord, master.] In old English law. Demesne, demam or dom^n. That of which one is lord or master; that of which one has the exclusive control, {de quo quisfacere voluntatem suam potest,)* Applied to the estate both of a feudal lord and his tenant. A lord's own land or estate, {patrimonium domini); that portion retained in his own possession or control, as distinguished from that which was granted out to tenants; the former being said to be held in dominico, the latter in servitio. Bract, fol. 263. Land held in villenage, however, was considered as dominieum^ the lord having the ri^ht to resume its possession at any time. /a. ibid. So was land let for a term of years. Spelman, See infra. That portion of a lord's lands which was reserved for his own special use, as for the supply of his table, and the maintenance of his family. Bract, ub, sup. See Demesne, Spelman cites Choppinus (lib. 1, tit. 1, § 6) for the use of the word domanium in the old French law, in this sense, and traces its origin to dominus, the master or giver of an entertainment, in the Roman writers. The estate which a free tenant {liber tenens,) had in the land, fee, or tenement held by him of his lord. It was not the lord's fee in demesne, but the tenant's; the lord had nothing in the fee but the service; it was the tenant's fee in demesne, and the lord's fee in service. {Dominus nihil habei in feodo nisi servitium; et sic erit feodum tenentis in dommico et feodum domini in servitio,) Bract, fol. 46 b. That is, the lord could not, (so long as homage and service were rendered him,) interfere with the tenant's possession, nor prevent him from doing as he pleased with the tenement itself. He could not even prevent him from aliening it to another person, unless the tenant were expressly restrained from so doing by the terms of the original con- Ttjrft Dce ( in ipsa dcnatioM,) Id. ibid, and foL 45 b, 46. The tenant in fact was dominus, in the sense of moiter, he had the exclusive control of the fee; the domimcum was m him, and not in tiie lord. Hence dominieum came to signify that in which one had a free tenement (liberum tenementum) or freehold, and it made no difference whether another was in actual possession of the land as lessee for a term of years, as guardian, or the like. Brant, fol. 268. See Id. fol. 148 b, 209.