COPYHOLD

copyhold, in english law, an ancient form of land tenure, legally defined as a "holding at the will of the lord according to the custom of the manor." though nowadays of diminishing practical importance, its incidents are historically interesting. its origin is to be found in the occupation by villani, or non-freemen, of portions of land belonging to the manor of a feudal lord. in the time of the domesday survey the manor was in part granted to free tenants, in part reserved by the lord himself for his own uses. the estate of the free tenants is the freehold estate of english law; as tenants of the same manor they assembled together in manorial court or court baron, of which they were the judges. the portion of the manor reserved for the lord (the _demesne_, or domain) was cultivated by labourers who were bound to the land (_adscripti glebae_). they could not leave the manor, and their service was obligatory. these villani, however, were allowed by the lord to cultivate portions of land for their own use. it was a mere occupation at the pleasure of the lord, but in course of time it grew into an occupation by right, recognized first of all by custom and afterwards by law. this kind of tenure is called by the lawyers _villenagium_, and it probably marks a great advance in the general recognition of the right when the name is applied to lands held on the same conditions not by villeins but by free men. the tenants in villenage were not, like the freeholders, members of the court baron, but they appear to have attended in a humbler capacity, and to have solicited the succession to the land occupied by a deceased father, or the admission of a new tenant who had purchased the goodwill, as it might be called, of the holding, paying for such favours certain customary fines or dues. in relation to the tenants in villenage, the court baron was called the customary court. the records of the court constituted the title of the villein tenant, held by copy of the court roll (whence the term "copyhold"); and the customs of the manor therein recorded formed the real property law applicable to his case. copyhold had long been established in practice before it was formally recognized by the law. at first it was in fact, as it is now in the fictitious theory of the law, a tenancy at will, for which none of the legal remedies of a freeholder were available. in the reign of edward