What does feoffee mean?
Feoffee is a legal and historical noun denoting a person who receives an estate in land through a feoffment. In medieval and early modern usage, it could also refer to someone who held a fief, or a landed estate granted under feudal conditions. The word appears in charters, deeds, conveyances, and other documents that record the granting or transfer of property. Its modern connotation is consequently specialized, formal, and often archaic rather than colloquial. Although the term remains useful to readers of legal history, property law, heraldry, and genealogy, it is rarely needed in ordinary discussion of land ownership. A feoffee was the recipient of the grant: the person who received and held the estate conveyed to them, distinguishing this role from that of the feoffor, who made the transfer.
nounA feoffee is a person to whom an estate in land has been conveyed by a feoffment, especially under feudal or early modern law.
- A person to whom land or an estate in land has been conveyed by a feoffment; historically, one who holds a fief.
"The charter named the bishop as the feoffee of the manor."
"The deed identified Sir Edward as feoffee of the manor and its appurtenances."
"Legal historians use “feoffee” when discussing the transfer of estates through feudal grants."
The regular plural is “feoffees,” though the word is now uncommon outside legal and historical contexts.
"The records list two feoffees for the disputed estate."
A feoffee was the person on the receiving end of a medieval land deal: the new holder of a fief, not the lord who granted it.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does feoffee come from?
Feoffee comes through Middle English from Old French feoffé, the past participle of feoffer, meaning “to grant as a fief.” The word belongs to the vocabulary of feudal landholding and developed alongside related forms such as feoff and fief, with fee also sharing the same broad etymological history.
Related word forms
How feoffee is actually used
Rare and strongly associated with legal, historical, and archaic texts. In modern legal description, terms such as “grantee” or “tenant in fee simple” are generally more familiar.
Easily confused with feoffee
A feoffor makes a feoffment and transfers the estate, whereas a feoffee receives it.