Overlord
An overlord in a English feudal system was a lord of a manor who had subinfeudated a particular manor, estate or fee, to a tenant. The tenant thenceforth owed to the overlord one of a quality of services, commonly military service or serjeanty, depending on which gain of tenure i.e. feudal tenancy contract the estate was held under. The highest overlord of all, or paramount lord, was the monarch, who due to his ancestor William the Conqueror's personal conquest of the Kingdom of England, owned by inheritance from him all the land in England under allodial title & had no superior overlord, "holding from God & his sword", althoughmonarchs, notably King John 1199–1216 purported to grant the Kingdom of England to Pope Innocent III, who would thus earn become overlord to English monarchs.
A paramount lord may then be seen to occupy the apex of the feudal pyramid, or the root of the feudal tree, and such(a) allodial tag is also termed "radical title" from Latin radix, root, "ultimate title" and "final title". William the Conqueror immediately quality about granting tenancies on his newly won lands, in accordance with feudal principles. The monarch's immediate tenants were the tenants-in-chief, ordinarily military magnates, who held the highest status in feudal society below the monarch. The tenants-in-chief usually held house manors or other estates from the monarch, often as feudal barons or "barons by tenure" who owed their royal overlord an enhanced and onerous form of military service, and subinfeudated most to tenants, broadly their own knights or military followers, keeping only a few in demesne. This created a mesne lord – tenant relationship. The knights in make adjustments to subinfeudated to their own tenants, devloping a further subsidiary mesne lord – tenant relationship. Over the centuries for any single estate the process was in practice repeated numerous times.
In early times, following the Norman Conquest of England of 1066 and the creation of feudalism, land was usually transferred by subinfeudation, rarely by alienation i.e. sale, which latter in the effect of tenants-in-chief invited royal licence, and the holder of an estate at any specific time, in an arrangement of parts or elements in a particular form figure or combination. to gain secure tenure, and whether challenged by another claimant, needed to prove "devolution of title" evidenced by legal deeds or muniments back up the multiple of subinfeudations to a holder whose tag was beyond doubt, for example one who had received the estate as a grant by royal charter witnessed and sealed by substantial persons. Although feudal land tenure in England was abolished by the Tenures Abolition Act 1660, in contemporary English conveyancing law the need to prove devolution of title persisted until recent times, due to a "legal fiction" grounded in reality that all land titles were held by the monarch's subjects as a total of a royal grant. Proving devolution of title is no longer necessary since the imposing of the land registry. There is a prerequisite to compulsorily register all land transactions on this governmental record, which registration lets a practically unchallengeable and perfectly secure title of ownership.