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A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were usually held the lord's manorial courts, communal meals with manorial tenants and great banquets. The term is today loosely (though erroneously) applied to various English country houses, mostly at the smaller end of the spectrum, sometimes dating from the Late Middle Ages, which currently or formerly house the landed gentry.
Manor houses were sometimes fortified, albeit not as fortified as castles, but this was often more for show than for defence. They existed in most European countries where feudalism was present.
The lord of the manor may have held several properties within a county or, for example in the case of a feudal baron, spread across a kingdom, which he occupied only on occasional visits. Even so, the business of the manor was directed and controlled by regular manorial courts, which appointed manorial officials such as the bailiff, granted copyhold leases to tenants, resolved disputes between manorial tenants and administered justice in general. A large and suitable building was required within the manor for such purpose, generally in the form of a great hall, and a solar might be attached to form accommodation for the lord.
The produce of a small manor might be insufficient to feed a lord and his large family for a full year, and thus he would spend only a few months at each manor and move on to another where stores had been laid up. This also gave the opportunity for the vacated manor house to be cleaned, especially important in the days of the cess-pit, and repaired. Thus such non-resident lords needed to appoint a steward or seneschal to act as their deputy in such matters and to preside at the manorial courts of his different manorial properties. The day-to-day administration was carried out by a resident official in authority at each manor, who in England was called a bailiff, or reeve.
Although not typically built with strong fortifications as were castles, many manor-houses were fortified, which required a royal licence to crenellate. They were often enclosed within walls or ditches which often also included agricultural buildings. Arranged for defence against roaming bands of robbers and thieves,[1] in days long before police, they were often surrounded by a moat with a drawbridge,[1] and were equipped with gatehouses and watchtowers, but not, as for castles, with a keep, large towers or lofty curtain walls designed to withstand a siege. The primary feature of the manor house was its great hall, to which subsidiary apartments were added as the lessening of feudal warfare permitted more peaceful domestic life.
By the beginning of the 16th century, manor houses as well as small castles began to acquire the character and amenities of the residences of country gentlemen, and many defensive elements were dispensed with, for example Sutton Place in Surrey, c.1521. A late 16th-century transformation produced many of the smaller Renaissancechâteaux of France and the numerous country mansions of the Elizabethan and Jacobean styles in England. These would eventually evolve into country houses with the estate replacing the manor.
History in England
Manor houses were often built in close proximity to the village for ease, as they served not just as a home for the lord of the manor, but as a centre of administration for those who lived or travelled within the bounds of the manor. In some instances they needed to be able to hold meetings of the Manorial court.
Nearly every large medieval manor house had its own deer-park adjoining, imparked (i.e. enclosed) by royal licence, which served primarily as a store of food in the form of venison. Within these licensed parks deer could not be hunted by royalty (with its huge travelling entourage which needed to be fed and entertained), nor by neighbouring land-owners nor by any other persons.
Ightham Mote, a 14th-century moated manor house in Kent, England
Decline of the manor house
Before around 1600, larger houses were usually fortified, generally for true defensive purposes but increasingly, as the kingdom became internally more peaceable after the Wars of the Roses, as a form of status symbol, reflecting the position of their owners as having been worthy to receive royal licence to crenellate. The Tudor period (16th century) of stability in England saw the building of the first of the unfortified great houses, for example Sutton Place in Surrey, circa 1521.
During the second half of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603) and under her successor King James I (1603–1625) the first mansions designed by architects not by mere masons or builders, began to make their appearance. Such houses as Burghley House, Longleat House, and Hatfield House are among the best known of this period and seem today to epitomise the English country house.
During the 16th century many lords of manors moved their residences from their ancient manor houses often situated next to the parish church and near or in the village and built a new manor house within the walls of their ancient deer-parks adjoining. This gave them more privacy and space.[2]
Leeds Manor House Blue Plaque, Scarborough Hotel
Naming
While suffixes given to manor houses in recent centuries have little substantive meaning, and many have changed over time,[lower-alpha 1] in previous centuries manor names had specific connotations.
Court – This suffix came into use in the 16th century[3][4][5] and was applied to the buildings where lords would receive their tenants (i.e., "hold court").[6]
Castle – Non-royal castles were generally the residences of feudal barons, whose baronies might comprise several dozen other manors. The manor on which the castle was situated was termed the caput of the barony, thus every true ancient defensive castle was also the manor house of its own manor. The suffix "-Castle" was also used to name certain manor houses, generally built as mock castles, but often as houses rebuilt on the site of a former true castle:
Place – The "Place" suffix is likely to have been a shortened form of "Palace", a term commonly used in Renaissance Italy (Palazzo) to denote a residence of the nobility.
Park – came into use in the 18th and 19th centuries
'Manor' Suffix - Romantic Revival - Manor houses, although mostly forming residences for the lords of the manors on which they were situated, were not historically named with the suffix "Manor", as were many grand country houses built in the 19th century, such as Hughenden Manor or Waddesdon Manor.
The usage is often today used as a modern catch-all suffix for an old house on an estate, true manor or not.
Similar constructions
Tower Houses – Tower houses, including Peel towers, were constructed in the wilder parts of England, usually in the marches. They served a defensive purpose, built as a solid fortified keep, they were designed to protect inhabitants from raids by border reivers. Though the lord lived in the tower and their followers lived in simple huts outside the walls, the towers were designed to provide a refuge so that, when cross-border raiding parties arrived, the whole population of a village could take to the tower and wait for the marauders to depart.
Lodges – Some of the land in England was designated as Royal forest during the feudal era. These areas were under forest law, which was historically distinct from the law of the rest of the country and operated outside the common law, serving to protect game animals and their forest habitat from destruction. Kings would appoint 'Wardens', 'Keepers', or 'Guardians' to oversee these lands, who would often be provided Lodges that functioned similarly to manor houses.
Clergy dwellings – As the often second most important individual in a feudal manor, clergy dwellings often incorporated many of the elements of a manor house. Some manors were themselves clerical and so the manor house and vicarage/rectory were one and the same. Properties such as rectories in England were often supported by their own Glebe – land within the parish/manor set aside to support a parish priest.
In France, the terms château or manoir are often used synonymously to describe a French manor house; maison-forte is the appellation for a strongly fortified house, which may include two sets of enclosing walls, drawbridges, and a ground-floor hall or salle basse that was used to receive peasants and commoners. The term manoir is used historically only in Normandy and in Brittany. The salle basse was also the location of the manorial court, with the steward or seigneur's seating location often marked by the presence of a crédence de justice or wall-cupboard (shelves built into the stone walls to hold documents and books associated with administration of the demesne or droit de justice).
The salle haute or upper-hall, reserved for the seigneur and where he received his high-ranking guests, was often accessible by an external spiral staircase. It was commonly "open" up to the roof trusses, as in similar English homes. This larger and more finely decorated hall was usually located above the ground-floor hall. The seigneur and his family's private chambres were often located off of the upper first-floor hall, and invariably had their own fireplace (with finely decorated chimney-piece) and frequently a latrine.[citation needed]
In addition to having both lower and upper halls, many French manor houses also had partly fortified gateways, watchtowers, and enclosing walls that were fitted with arrow or gun loops for added protection. Some larger 16th-century manors, such as the Château de Kerjean in Finistère, Brittany, were even outfitted with ditches and fore-works that included gun platforms for cannons. These defensive arrangements allowed maisons-fortes and rural manors to be safe from a coup de main perpetrated by an armed band, many of which roamed the countryside during the troubled times of the Hundred Years War and the French wars of religion; but these fortified manor houses could not have withstood a lengthy siege undertaken by a regular army equipped with (siege) engines or heavy artillery.[7]
Germany
The German equivalent of a manor house is a Gutshaus (or Gut, Gutshof, Rittergut, Landgut or Bauerngut). Also Herrenhaus and Domäne are common terms. Schloss (pl. Schlösser) is another German word for a building similar to manor house, stately home, château or palace. Other terms used in German are Burg (castle), Festung (fort/fortress) and Palais/Palast (palace).
German language uses terms like Schloss or Gutshaus for places that functioned as the administrative center of a manor. Gut(shaus) implies a smaller ensemble of buildings within a more agricultural setting, usually owned by lower-ranking landed gentry whereas Schloss describes more representative and larger places. During the 18th century, some of these manor houses became local centers of culture where the local gentry, sometimes inspired by what they had experienced during their grand tour, was mimicking the lifestyle of the higher nobility, creating lavish parks, art collections or showed an interest in science and research.
Schloss Machern (Machern Castle) near Leipzig is an example of a typical manor house, it evolved from a medieval castle which was originally protected by a water moat and later was converted into a baroque-style castle with typical architectural features of the period and one of the first English-style parks in Germany.
Warmond House (Huis te Warmond), the manor house for the Hoge Heerlijkheid of Warmond in the Netherlands
There are many historical manor houses throughout the Netherlands. Some have been converted into museums, hotels, conference centres, etc. Some are located on estates and in parks.
Many of the earlier houses are the legacy of the feudal heerlijkheid system. The Dutch had a manorial system centred on the local lord's demesne. In Middle Dutch this was called the vroonhof or vroenhoeve, a word derived from the Proto-Germanic word fraujaz, meaning "lord". This was also called a hof and the lord's house a hofstede. Other terms were used, including landhuis (or just huis), a ridderhofstad (Utrecht), a stins or state (Friesland), or a havezate (Drente, Overijssel and Gelderland). Some of these buildings were fortified. A number of castles associated with the nobility are found in the country. In Dutch, a building like this was called a kasteel, a slot, a burcht or (in Groningen) a borg.[8]
During the Dutch Golden Age in the 17th century, merchants and regents looking for ways to spend their wealth bought country estates and built grand new homes, often just for summer use. Some purchased existing manor houses and castles from the nobility. Some country houses were built on top of the ruins of earlier castles that had been destroyed during the Dutch Revolt. The owners, aspiring to noble status, adopted the name of the earlier castle.
These country houses or stately homes (called buitenplaats or buitenhuis in Dutch) were located close to the city in picturesque areas with a clean water source. Wealthy families sent their children to the country in the summer because of the putrid canals and diseases in the city. A few still exist, especially along the river Vecht, the river Amstel, the Spaarne in Kennemerland, the river Vliet and in Wassenaar. Some are located near former lakes (now polders) like the Wijkermeer, Watergraafsmeer and the Beemster. In the 19th century, with improvements in water management, new regions came into fashion, such as the Utrecht Hill Ridge (Utrechtse Heuvelrug) and the area around Arnhem.
Today there is a tendency to group these grand buildings together in the category of "castles". There are many castles and buitenplaatsen in all twelve provinces. A larger-than-average home is today called a villa or a herenhuis, but despite the grand name this is not the same as a manor house.
The architectural form of the Polish manor house (Polish: dwór or dworek) evolved around the late Polish Renaissance period and continued until the Second World War, which, together with the communist takeover of Poland, spelled the end of the nobility in Poland. A 1944 decree nationalized most mansions as property of the nobles, but few were adapted to other purposes. Many slowly fell into ruin over the next few decades.
In Portugal, it was quite common during the 17th to early 20th centuries for the aristocracy to have country homes. These homes, known as solares (paços, when the manor was a certain stature or size; quintas, when the manor included a sum of land), were found particularly in the northern, usually richer, Portugal, in the Beira, Minho, and Trás-os-Montes provinces. Many have been converted into a type of hotel called pousada.
Quinta is a term used in the Portuguese language-speaking world, which is applied variously to manors homes or to estates as a whole.
Spain
Casa solariega is the catch-all name for manor houses in Spain. They were the places where heads of noble families resided. Those houses receive a different name depending on the geographical region of Spain where they are located, the noble rank of the owner family, the size of the house and/or the use that the family gave to them. In Spain many old manor houses, palaces, castles and grand homes have been converted into a Parador hotel.
A Palacio is a sumptuously decorated grand residence, especially a royal residence or the home of a head of state or some other high-ranking dignitary, such as a bishop or archbishop. The word itself is derived from the Latin name Palātium, for Palatine Hill, the hill which housed the Imperial residences in Rome. Palacio Real is the same as Palacio, but historically used (either now or in the past) by the Spanish royal family. Palacio arzobispal is the same as Palacio, but historically used by the ecclesiastic authorities (mainly bishops or archbishops).[citation needed]
Alcázar is a type of Moorish castle or fortified palace in Spain (and also Portugal) built during Muslim rule, although some founded by Christians. Mostly of the alcázars were built between the 8th and 15th centuries. Many cities in Spain have its alcázar. Palaces built in the Moorish style after the expulsion of the Moors from Spain are often referred to as alcazars as well.
Hacienda is landed estates of significant size located in the south of Spain (Andalusia). They were also very common in the former Spanish colonies. Some haciendas were plantations, mines or factories. Many haciendas combined these productive activities. They were developed as profit-making, economic enterprises linked to regional or international markets. The owner of an hacienda was termed an hacendado or patrón. The work force on haciendas varied, depending on the type of hacienda and where it was located.
Casona is old manor houses in León, Asturias and Cantabria (Spain) following the so-called "casa montañesa architecture". Most of them were built in the 17th and 18th centuries. Typologically they are halfway between rustic houses and palaces
Quinta is a countryside house closer to the urban core. Initially, "quinta" (fifth) designated the 1/5 part of the production that the lessee (called "quintero") paid to the lessor (owner of the land), but lately the term was applied to the whole property. This term is also very common in the former Spanish colonies.
Alqueria in Al-Andalus made reference to small rural communities that were located near cities (medinas). Since the 15th century it makes reference to a farmhouse, with an agricultural farm, typical of Levante and the southeastern Spanish, mainly in Granada and Valencia.
Pazo da Touza, Galicia
A pazo is a type of grand old house found in Galicia. A pazo is usually located in the countryside and the former residence of an important nobleman or other important individual. They were of crucial importance to the rural and monastic communities around them. The pazo was a traditional architectural structure associated with a community and social network. It usually consisted of a main building surrounded by gardens, a dovecote and outbuildings such as a small chapels for religious celebrations. The word pazo is derived from the Latinpalatiu(m) ("palace").
The Baserri, called "Caserio" in Spanish, is the typical manor house of the Basque Provinces and Navarre. A baserri represents the core unit of traditional Basque society, as the ancestral home of a family. Traditionally, the household is administered by the etxekoandre (lady of the house) and the etxekojaun (master of the house), each with distinctly defined rights, roles and responsibilities. When the couple reaches a certain age upon which they wish to retire, the baserri is formally handed over to a child. Unusually, the parents were by tradition free to choose any child, male or female, firstborn or later born, to assume the role of etxekoandre or etxekojaun to ensure the child most suitable to the role would inherit the ancestral home. The baserri under traditional law (the fueros) cannot be divided or inherited by more than one person. This is still the case in the Southern Basque Country but the introduction of the Napoleonic Code in France, under which such practices are illegal, greatly upset this tradition in the North. Although the Basques in the north chose to be "creative" with the new laws, it overall resulted in the breakup and ultimate financial ruin of many baserris. In practice the tradition of not breaking up baserris meant that the remaining children had to marry into another baserri, stay on the family baserri as unmarried employees or make their own way in the world (Iglesia o mar o casa real, "Church or sea or royal house").
A cortijo is a type of traditional rural habitat in the Southern half of Spain, including all of Andalusia and parts of Extremadura and Castile-La Mancha. Cortijos may have their origins in ancient Roman villas, for the word is derived from the Latincohorticulum, a diminutive of cohors, meaning 'courtyard'. They are often isolated structures associated with a large family farming or livestock operation in the vast and empty adjoining lands. It would usually include a large house, together with accessory buildings such as workers' quarters, sheds to house livestock, granaries, oil mills, barns and often a wall enclosing a courtyard. The master of the cortijo or "señorito" would usually live with his family in a two-story building, while the accessory structures were for the labourers and their families —also known as "cortijeros".
Before the founding of the United States, colonial powers such as Britain, France and the Netherlands made land grants to favored individuals in the original colonies that evolved into large agricultural estates that resembled the manors familiar to Europeans.[citation needed] Founding fathers such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were the owners of large agricultural estates granted by colonial rulers and built large manor houses from which these estates were managed (e.g., Mount Vernon, Monticello).
American agricultural estates, however, often relied on slaves rather than tenant farmers or serfs which were common in Europe at the time. The owners of American agricultural estates did not have noble titles and there was no legally recognized political structure based on an aristocratic, land-owning class. As a result, this limited the development of a feudal or manorial land-owning system to just a few regions such as Tidewater and Piedmont Virginia, the Carolina Low Country, the Mississippi Delta, and the Hudson River Valley in the early years of the republic.[citation needed]
Today, relics of early manorial life in the early United States are found in a few places such as the Eastern Shore of Maryland with examples such as Wye Hall and Hope House (Easton, Maryland), Virginia at Monticello and Westover Plantation, the Hudson River Valley of New York at Clermont State Historic Site or along the Mississippi such as Lansdowne (Natchez, Mississippi).[citation needed] Over time, these large estates were usually subdivided as they became economically unsustainable and are now a fraction of their historical extent. In the southern states, the demise of plantation slavery after the Civil War gave rise to a sharecropping agricultural economy that had similarities to European serfdom and lasted into the early 20th century.[citation needed] The Biltmore Estate in North Carolina (which is still owned by descendants of the original builder, a member of the Vanderbilt family) is a more modern, though unsuccessful, attempt at building a small manorial society near Asheville, North Carolina.[citation needed]
Most manor-style homes built since the Civil War were merely country retreats for wealthy industrialists in the late 19th and early 20th century and had little agricultural, administrative or political function.[citation needed] Examples of these homes include Castle Hill (Ipswich, Massachusetts), Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site and Hearst Castle. A rare example of hereditary estate ownership in the United States that includes a manor-type house is Gardiners Island,[citation needed] a private island that has been in the same family since the 17th century and contains a Georgian architecture house. Today, some historically and architecturally significant manor houses in the United States are museums. However, many still function as private residences, including many of the colonial-era manor houses found in Maryland and Virginia a few of which are still held within the original families.[citation needed]
↑ What is today known as "Heanton Satchville", for example, was "Heanton House" in the 18th century and "Heanton Court" in the 19th century.
Related Research Articles
Manorialism, also known as seigneurialism, the manor system or manorial system, was the method of land ownership in parts of Europe, notably France and later England, during the Middle Ages. Its defining features included a large, sometimes fortified manor house in which the lord of the manor and his dependants lived and administered a rural estate, and a population of labourers or serfs who worked the surrounding land to support themselves and the lord. These labourers fulfilled their obligations with labour time or in-kind produce at first, and later by cash payment as commercial activity increased. Manorialism was part of the feudal system.
A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars usually consider a castle to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble. This is distinct from a mansion, palace, and villa, whose main purpose was exclusively for pleasance and are not primarily fortresses but may be fortified. Use of the term has varied over time and, sometimes, has also been applied to structures such as hill forts and 19th- and 20th-century homes built to resemble castles. Over the Middle Ages, when genuine castles were built, they took on a great many forms with many different features, although some, such as curtain walls, arrowslits, and portcullises, were commonplace.
A château is a manor house, or palace, or residence of the lord of the manor, or a fine country house of nobility or gentry, with or without fortifications, originally, and still most frequently, in French-speaking regions.
Copyhold was a form of customary land ownership common from the Late Middle Ages into modern times in England. The name for this type of land tenure is derived from the act of giving a copy of the relevant title deed that is recorded in the manorial court roll to the tenant; not the actual land deed itself. The legal owner of the manor land remained the mesne lord, who was legally the copyholder, according to the titles and customs written down in the manorial roll. In return for being given land, a copyhold tenant was required to carry out specific manorial duties or services. The specific rights and duties of copyhold tenants varied greatly from one manor to another and many were established by custom. By the 19th century, many customary duties had been replaced with the payment of rent.
Serfdom was the status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism, and similar systems. It was a condition of debt bondage and indentured servitude with similarities to and differences from slavery. It developed during late antiquity and the Early Middle Ages in Europe and lasted in some countries until the mid-19th century.
A villa is a type of house that was originally an ancient Roman upper class country house. Since its origins in the Roman villa, the idea and function of a villa have evolved considerably. After the fall of the Roman Republic, villas became small farming compounds, which were increasingly fortified in Late Antiquity, sometimes transferred to the Church for reuse as a monastery. Then they gradually re-evolved through the Middle Ages into elegant upper-class country homes. In the early modern period, any comfortable detached house with a garden near a city or town was likely to be described as a villa; most survivals have now been engulfed by suburbia. In modern parlance, "villa" can refer to various types and sizes of residences, ranging from the suburban semi-detached double villa to, in some countries, especially around the Mediterranean, residences of above average size in the countryside.
In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre, guildhall, or municipal building is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses the city or town council, its associated departments, and their employees. It also usually functions as the base of the mayor of a city, town, borough, county or shire, and of the executive arm of the municipality.
A mansion is a large dwelling house. The word itself derives through Old French from the Latin word mansio "dwelling", an abstract noun derived from the verb manere "to dwell". The English word manse originally defined a property large enough for the parish priest to maintain himself, but a mansion is no longer self-sustaining in this way. Manor comes from the same root—territorial holdings granted to a lord who would "remain" there. Following the fall of Rome, the practice of building unfortified villas ceased. Today, the oldest inhabited mansions around the world usually began their existence as fortified houses in the Middle Ages. As social conditions slowly changed and stabilised fortifications were able to be reduced, and over the centuries gave way to comfort. It became fashionable and possible for homes to be beautiful rather than grim and forbidding allowing for the development of the modern mansion.
Lord of the manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England and Norman England, referred to the landholder of a rural estate. The titles date to the English feudal system. The lord enjoyed manorial rights as well as seignory, the right to grant or draw benefit from the estate. The title is not a peerage or title of nobility but was a relationship to land and how it could be used and those living on the land (tenants) may be deployed, and the broad estate and its inhabitants administered. The title continues in modern England and Wales as a legally recognised form of property that can be held independently of its historical rights. It may belong entirely to one person or be a moiety shared with other people. The title is known as Breyr in Welsh.
False titles of nobility or royal title scams are claimed titles of social rank that have been fabricated or assumed by an individual or family without recognition by the authorities of a country in which titles of nobility exist or once existed. They have received an increasing amount of press attention, as more schemes that purport to confer or sell such honorifics are promoted on the internet. Concern about the use of titles which lack legal standing or a basis in tradition has prompted increased vigilance and denunciation, although under English common law a person may choose to be known by any name they see fit as long as it is not done to "commit fraud or evade an obligation".
Folwark is a Polish word for a primarily serfdom-based farm and agricultural enterprise, often very large.
An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a town house. This allowed them to spend time in the country and in the city—hence, for these people, the term distinguished between town and country. However, the term also encompasses houses that were, and often still are, the full-time residence for the landed gentry who dominated rural Britain until the Reform Act 1832. Frequently, the formal business of the counties was transacted in these country houses, having functional antecedents in manor houses.
In Anglo-Saxon England, a reeve was an administrative official serving the king or a lesser lord in a variety of roles. After the Norman Conquest, it was an office held by a man of lower rank, appointed as manager of a manor and overseer of the peasants. In this later role, historian H. R. Loyn observes, "he is the earliest English specialist in estate management."
A tower house is a particular type of stone structure, built for defensive purposes as well as habitation. Tower houses began to appear in the Middle Ages, especially in mountainous or limited access areas, to command and defend strategic points with reduced forces. At the same time, they were also used as an aristocrat's residence, around which a castle town was often constructed.
A great hall is the main room of a royal palace, castle or a large manor house or hall house in the Middle Ages, and continued to be built in the country houses of the 16th and early 17th centuries, although by then the family used the great chamber for eating and relaxing. At that time the word "great" simply meant big and had not acquired its modern connotations of excellence. In the medieval period, the room would simply have been referred to as the "hall" unless the building also had a secondary hall, but the term "great hall" has been predominant for surviving rooms of this type for several centuries, to distinguish them from the different type of hall found in post-medieval houses. Great halls were found especially in France, England and Scotland, but similar rooms were also found in some other European countries.
The manorial courts were the lowest courts of law in England during the feudal period. They had a civil jurisdiction limited both in subject matter and geography. They dealt with matters over which the lord of the manor had jurisdiction, primarily torts, local contracts and land tenure, and their powers only extended to those who lived within the lands of the manor: the demesne and such lands as the lord had enfeoffed to others, and to those who held land therein. Historians have divided manorial courts into those that were primarily seignorial – based on feudal responsibilities – and those based on separate delegation of authority from the monarch. There were three types of manorial court: the court of the honour; the court baron; and the court customary, also known as the halmote court.
Beverston Castle, also known as Beverstone Castle or Tetbury Castle, was constructed as a medieval stone fortress in the village of Beverston, Gloucestershire, England. The property is a mix of manor house, various small buildings, extensive gardens and the medieval ruins of the fortified building. The castle was founded in 1229 by Maurice de Gaunt.
A heerlijkheid was a landed estate that served as the lowest administrative and judicial unit in rural areas in the Dutch-speaking Low Countries before 1800. It originated as a unit of lordship under the feudal system during the Middle Ages. The English equivalents are manor, seigniory and lordship. The German equivalent is Herrschaft. The heerlijkheid system was the Dutch version of manorialism that prevailed in the Low Countries and was the precursor to the modern municipality system in the Netherlands and Flemish Belgium.
In Renaissance and Early Modern German architecture, a Lustschloss is a country house, château, or palace which served the private pleasure of its owner, and was seasonally inhabited as a respite from court ceremonies and state duties. In France, the Château de Madrid in the Bois de Boulogne, easily reached from Paris, arguably set an example, and Louis XIV similarly holidayed annually from the Palace of Versailles to his nearby Château de Marly, and more frequently used his Grand Trianon, to which the Petit Trianon was added in the following century.
Feudalism as practiced in the Kingdoms of England during the medieval period was a state of human society that organized political and military leadership and force around a stratified formal structure based on land tenure. As a military defence and socio-economic paradigm designed to direct the wealth of the land to the king while it levied military troops to his causes, feudal society was ordered around relationships derived from the holding of land. Such landholdings are termed fiefdoms, traders, fiefs, or fees.
↑ Risdon, Tristram. Survey of Devon (1811ed.). p.336. This now lord of these lands Sir Robert Basset hath his dwelling at Heanton-Court, in this parish, an adjunct importing a manor-house in the lord's signiory
↑ Risdon, Tristram. Survey of Devon (1811ed.). p.56. This Nutwell Court, which signifies a mansion-house in a signiory, came to the family of Prideaux
↑ Risdon, Tristram. Survey of Devon (1811ed.). p.319. Their house [Yarnscombe] is called "Court", which implieth a manor house, or chief dwelling in a lordship.
↑ Prince, John (1810). Hill, Sir John, Knight (1810ed.). London. pp.494–497. The word court annex'd unto the name of the lord, may imply, that Hill had a lordship here; and that the court of his mannor, where the tenants were to pay their suit and service, was usually kept (according to antient custom) at this his mansion-house: this is the reason why many gentlemens seats, in this county, and elsewhere, are distinguished by the title of court, or court-house, because the court of the mannor was wont to be held there
↑ Barbier, Pierre (2005). Le Trégor Historique et Monumental. Saint-Brieuc: La Decouvrance Editions. p.419.
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