infeoff

English

Verb

infeoff (third-person singular simple present infeoffs, present participle infeoffing, simple past and past participle infeoffed or infeft)

1. Alternative form of enfeoff
   • 1648 February, Barbara Taft, “‘They that Persew Perfaction on Earth …’: The Political Progress of Robert Overton”, in Ian Gentles, John Morrill, Blair Worden, editors, Soldiers, Writers and Statesmen of the English Revolution, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, published 1998, →ISBN, page 289:

     [I]n February 1648, in a letter to [Thomas] Fairfax's secretary, [Robert] Overton expresses pleasure that the king's servants have been removed and suggests that it would 'prove a happy privation if the Father would please to dispossess him of three transitory kingdoms to infeoff him in an eternal one'.

   • 1843 April, Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present, American edition, Boston, Mass.: Charles C[offin] Little and James Brown, published 1843, →OCLC, book II (The Ancient Monk):

     [H]e alleged farther that his predecessors had been infeft, at the Conquest, in the lands of Alfric son of Wisgar, who was Lord of that Hundred, as may be read in Domesday Book by all persons.

   • 1847, John Hill Burton, “Constitution of Rights in Land”, in Manual of the Law of Scotland. [...] The Law of Private Rights and Obligations, 2nd enlarged edition, Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, […]; London: Simpkin, Marshall, & Co., →OCLC, part II (The Various Classes of Property and Their Respective Tenures), section 3 (Feu-charter), page 54:

     The deed by which a fee is brought into existence, or by which the superior authorizes a person to hold lands of him as his vassal, and entitles the vassal to be put in personal possession of such lands, is called a Feu-charter. It consists in general of the following clauses. [...] 10. Precept of Sasine, by which the superior empowers the vassal to be infeft.

   • 1885, Dictionary of National Biography, Robert Monro:

     [...] while a minor he received a dispensation and special license from the king, dated 8 Jan. 1608, upon which by a precept from chancery he was infeft in all the lands possessed by his father on 26, 27, 28 and 29 April.

   • [1980?], Ann Morton, Gordon Donaldson, British National Archives and the Local Historian: A Guide to Official Record Publications (Helps for Students of History; 88), London: Historical Association, →ISBN, page 46:

     Not only had a vassal to be infeft when a grant was made or confirmed: a successor had to be infeft when he took up his inheritance.

References

• “infeoff”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.