Demesne – מילון אנגלי-אנגלי
demesne
n.
ownership of property, legal possession of land as a person's own; domain, realm
Demesne
In the
feudal system the
demesne ( ; from Old French
demeine, ultimately from Latin
dominus, "lord, master of a household" –
demesne is a variant of
domaine with an unetymological
s inserted) was all the land, not necessarily all
contiguous to the
manor house, which was retained by a
lord of the manor for his own use and support, under his own management, as distinguished from land
sub-enfeoffed by him to others as sub-tenants. The system of
manorial land tenure, broadly termed
feudalism, was conceived in Western Europe, initially in France but exported to areas affected by
Norman expansion during the
Middle Ages, for example the Kingdoms of
England,
Sicily,
Jerusalem,
Scotland, and
Ireland.
demesne
Noun
1. extensive landed property (especially in the country) retained by the owner for his own use; "the family owned a large estate on Long Island"
(synonym) estate, land, landed estate, acres
(hypernym) real property, real estate, realty
(hyponym) freehold
2. territory over which rule or control is exercised; "his domain extended into Europe"; "he made it the law of the land"
(synonym) domain, land
(hypernym) region
(hyponym) archduchy
(part-holonym) country, state, land
Demesne
(n.)
A lord's chief manor place, with that part of the lands belonging thereto which has not been granted out in tenancy; a house, and the land adjoining, kept for the proprietor's own use.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913), edited by Noah Porter.
About
Demesne, Demesne As Of Fee
DEMESNE - Eng. Law. The name given to that portion of the lands of a manor which the lord retained in his own hands for the use of himself and family. These lands were called terra dominicales or demesne lands, because they were occupied by the lord, or dominus manerii, and his servants, etc.
DEMESNE AS OF FEE - A man is said to be seised in his demesne as of fee of a corporeal inheritance, because he has a property dominicum or demesne in the thing itself. But when he has no dominion in the thing itself, as in the case of an incorporeal hereditament, he is said to be seised as of fee, and not in his demesne as of fee.
Formerly it was the practice in an action on the case, e.g., for a nuisance to real estate, to aver in the declaration the seisin of the plaintiff in demesne as of fee; and this is still necessary in order to estop the record with the land; so that it may run with or attend the title. But such an action may be maintained on the possession as well as on the seisin, although the effect of the record in this case upon the title would not be the same.
This entry contains material from Bouvier's Legal Dictionary, a work published in the 1850's.
