Subinfeudatione

Subinfeudatione, or subinfeudation, is a medieval feudal law concept describing the process by which a holder of a feudal tenure (a vassal) could grant part of his fee to another person, who would then hold from him as a new vassal or mesne lord. In a typical chain, an overlord grants land to a tenant-in-fee, who may in turn grant a portion to a subtenant, creating multiple layers of lordship. The subtenant owes service to the intermediate lord, while the original obligations to the overlord remain in force through the chain.

The practice facilitated redistribution and development of land without direct royal grants, but it also increased the complexity of tenure and the distance between landholders and the sovereign. Subinfeudation could complicate enforcement of rents, rights, and military obligations, and it sometimes weakened direct accountability to the ultimate overlord. In medieval England and elsewhere, extensive subinfeudation contributed to intricate networks of vassalage and governance.

Legal responses to subinfeudation developed over time. In England, the growth of subinfeudation prompted greater royal and legal scrutiny of tenure arrangements. A major reform was the Statute of Quia Emptores (late 13th century), which forbade the creation of new tenures by subinfeudation and prescribed that alienation of land be accomplished by substitution, so that the new holder would hold directly of the same overlord in the same manner. The effect was to curb the proliferation of intermediate lords and to stabilize the feudal hierarchy.

By the transition to early modern property law, subinfeudation had largely waned in many jurisdictions, though the term and concept remain of interest to historians studying the evolution of feudal tenure and landholding practices.