Serjeanty

In English law. A species of service which cannot be due or performed from a tenant to any lord but the king, and is either grand or petit serjeanty.

In English Law. A species of service which cannot be due or performed from a tenant to any lord but the king, and is either grand or petit. “The exact idea of serjeanty as conceived in the thirteenth century,’’ says a recent writer on this subject, “is not one easily defined.” Several different classes of men were grouped together under one heading, the bond between them being very slight, and the distinction between serjeanty and knight’s service on the one hand and socage on the other is hard to determine; 1 Poll. & Maitl. 262. Serjeanty means service. The serjeant means primarily one who serves. Those who follow the law are serjeants-at-law. The tenants by serjeanty are no doubt the descendants of the servientes of Domesday Book, who held land in many counties as the servants, in many capacities, of the king and the great nobles. There were many peculiar features of this tenure in the 13th century. heir, the relief was arbitrary. The land was never partitioned, because personal services could not be partitioned. Land long remained inalienable. Of the non-military serjeanties held under the king, there were services which were rather regarded as conferring dignity than as service: to carry the king’s banner and the like. Many tenants held by the tenure of doing a variety of humbler services. Similarly, the great lords let lands to be held by serjeanty, the tenants being the servants of the lord. The importance of this class of tenants was very great. In the 12th and 13th centuries the military serjeanties supplied the feudal army with light auxiliary troops, attendants on the knights, material for war, etc., and this both to the king and the mesne lord. In the 14th century there was a tendency to substitute the contract with the hired servant for the status of the tenant in serjeanty. As a result, little was left except the tenure of those who held by the tenure of dignified services to the king, or some service pertaining to war. In Britton’s day, serjeanty was specially, but not exclusively, connected with war and the idea arose that all tenure by serjeanty must be tenure in chief; Litt. § 161. The distinction, in a social sense, between these two surviving classes was expressed by the terms “ grand ” and “petit” They came to have* a technical meaning, due probably to the need for settling the question whether tenure by serjeanty gave rise to the incidents of wardship and marriage; 1 Poll. & Maitl. 304. As the greater number of the old serjeanties dropped out, there remained only the serjeanties performed by the great nobility on state occasions and the smaller military serjeanties. Tenure by the latter class came to be “but socage in effect”; Litt. § 160; and tenure by the former class came to be similar to tenure by knight service, till It also was turned Into tenure by socage by an act in 1660 which abolished military tenures, but preserved the honorary services due from the tenant by grand serjeanty; 3 Holdsw. Hist. E. L. 39. Estates conferred by the crown in recognition of distinguished public services are generally held by petit serjeanty; Jenks, Mod. Land Law 23.

In English law. Service; a special kind of feudal service held only of the king. v. Grand serjeanty; Special serjeanty.

A special kind of knight-service, held only of the King. Grand serjeanty: when the tenant was not bound to attend the King in wars, nor liable to aid or escuage; but performed some particular military duty or honorary service. Petty serjeanty: when the tenant held by annual render of some weapon or the like; in effect, like common socage, v. Tenure. Serment,/r. Oath.

A species of tenure by knight service, which was due to the king only; and was distinguished into grand and petit sergeanty. The tenant wars, to do some honorary service to the king in person, — as to carry his banner, his sword, or the liice; or to be his bntler, champion, or other officer, at his coronation. Petit sergeanty differed from grand sergeanty in that the service rendered to the king was not of a personal nature, but consisted in rendering him annually some small implement of war, — as a bow, a sword, a lance, an arrow, or the like. (Cowd.) Both these species of tenures were spared at the general abolition of feudal tenures in 1660 (12 Car. II. eh. 24); and the estates of Strathfieldsaye (Duke of Wellington) and Blenheim (Duke of Marlborough) are examples,— perhaps the only examples, — at the present day, of the tenure by petit sergeanty. Brtyum.