enfeoffed

comparative more enfeoffed · superlative most enfeoffed

1. Belonging to a vassal under a feudal system, typically in exchange for fealty.

   This is an understanding unique from that of all other major commentators, who argued that it referred to an official in charge of supervising the boundary of an enfeoffed land.

   2016, Yag-yong Chŏng, The Analects of Dasan, page 222

   2 more examples

   In early Zhou times, the character guo, which in modern Chinese means "state," "nation," or "country," not only denoted an enfeoffed territory but also meant the walled city where the seat of the head of the fief resided.seat of the head of the fief resided.

   2000, Yinong Xu, The Chinese City in Space and Time, page 79

   He, too, was a knight, possessing quit-rents, a mill, and some woodland; his brothers held their share of an enfeoffed inheritance from him, according to the system of inheritance which was practised among the nobility; his wife was 'Dame Mary, the steward's lady'.

   2015, Marc Bloch, Land and Work in Mediaeval Europe

2. Having legal possession of a fiefdom in exchange for fealty

   Here, the disrespect shown the Son of Heaven by one or more enfeoffed lords is evident.

   1994, Hsiung Yang, Xiong Yang, Michael Nylan, The Elemental Changes

   2 more examples

   By the time of the Nibelungenlied the word was used to denote a wide variety of usually ecclesiastic or royal administrators, from the lowest, unfree ministerial to an enfeoffed judge.

   2002, Francis G. Gentry, The Nibelungen Tradition, page 142

   It was superimposed on rules of conduct evolved at an earlier date as the spontaneous expression of class consciousness; rules that pertained to the fealty of vassals (the transition appears clearly, towards the end of the eleventh century, in the Book of the Christian Life by Bishop Bonizo of Sutri, for whom the knight is, first and foremost, an enfeoffed vassal ) and constituted above all a class code of noble and 'courteous' people.

   2002, Marc Bloch, Feudal Society: Vol 2: Social Classes and Political Organisation, page 38

1. participlepastsimple past and past participle of enfeoff