feoffment
n.
giving of a fief, giving of a piece of land (during the Middle Ages)
Fiefdom
Under the system of
feudalism, a fiefdom, fief, feud, feoff, or fee, often consisted of
inheritable lands or revenue-producing property granted by a
liege lord in return for a form of allegiance, originally to give him the means to fulfill his military duties when called upon. However anything of value could be held in fief, such as an office, a right of exploitation (e.g., hunting, fishing) or any other type of revenue, rather than the land it comes from.
See more at Wikipedia.org...
Feoffment
A form granting conveying a fee. Generally the recipient of the fee received a branch or clod of dirt as a symbolic gesture.
FEOFFMENT
A gift of any corporeal hereditaments to another. It operates by transmutation of possession, and it is essential to its completion that the seisin be passed. This term also signifies the instrument or deed by which such hereditament is conveyed.
This instrument was used as one of the earliest modes of conveyance of the common law. It signified the grant of a feud or fee, but it came to signify the grant of a free inheritance in fee, respect being had to the perpetuity of the estate granted rather than to the feudal tenure. The feoffment was accompanied by livery of seisin. The conveyance by feoffment, with livery of seisin, has become infrequent, if not obsolete in England. It has not been used in practice in the U.S.
This entry contains material from Bouvier's Legal Dictionary, a work published in the 1850's.
feoffment