FEUD
feud,n. Hist. 1.A heritable estate in land conveyed from a feudal superior to a grantee or
tenant, held on the condition of rendering services to the superior.
“It is believed that the forms feud and fief appear in England but late in the day under the
influence of foreign books; they never became terms of our law. It is noticeable also that feodum
was constantly used in the sense that our fee has when we speak of a lawyer’s or doctor’s fee;
payments due for services rendered, at least if they are permanent periodic payments, are feoda;
the judges, for example, receive feoda, not salaries. The etymological problem presented by the
English fee seems no easy one, because at the Conquest the would-be Latin feodum or feudum
(the d in which has puzzled philologists and does not always appear in Domesday Book) is
introduced among a people which already has feoh as a word for property in general and cattle in
particular.” 2 Frederick Pollock & Frederic W. Maitland, The History of English Law Before the
Time of Edward I 236 n.2 (2d ed. 1899).
impartible feud.An indivisible feud; a feud not subject to partition. See feudum individuum
under FEUD.
improper feud.A nonmilitary feud; a feud that is base or servile in nature.
“These were the principal, and very simple, qualities of the genuine or original feuds; being
then all of a military nature, and in the hands of military persons: though the feudatories, being
under frequent incapacities of cultivating and manuring their own lands, soon found it necessary
to commit part of them to inferior tenants …. But this at the same time demolished the ancient
simplicity of feuds; and an inroad being once made upon their constitution, it subjected them, in a
course of time, to great varieties and innovations. Feuds came to be bought and sold, and
deviations were made from the old fundamental rules of tenure and succession; which were held
no longer sacred, when the feuds themselves no longer continued to be purely military. Hence
these tenures began now to be divided into feoda propria et impropria, proper and improper
feuds ….” 2 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 57–58 (1766).
proper feud.A feud based on military service.
- The interest of the tenant in the land conveyed. 3. The land itself conveyed. — Also termed
(in senses 1, 2 & 3) fee; fief; feod; feude; feudum. 4. An enmity or private war existing between
families or clans, esp. as a result of a murder.“Where wrong done to an individual is not regarded
as an injury to the entire tribe, the wrongdoer is out of the peace only as regards the wronged party
and his kin. The situation created by such wrongful deed is feud (Anglo Saxon foehth, Latin faida).
The root meaning of the word is ‘hatred.’ Feud is legally sanctioned hostility. The recognition of
feud by the law is found in the fact that revenge taken in lawful feud is not a breach of the peace.
It is not a wrongful deed. It furnishes no basis for any claim for fine or punishment. The man slain
in lawful feud is not to be avenged nor has compensation to be paid for his slaying.” Munroe
Smith, The Development of European Law 29 (1928).
blood feud.A state of hostility between families in which one family seeks to avenge the
killing of one of its members by killing a member of the other family. See VENDETTA.
“Anglo-Saxon polity preserved, even down to the Norman Conquest, many traces of a time
when kinship was the strongest of all bonds. Such a stage of society, we hardly need add, is not
confined to any one region of the world or any one race of men…. When it puts on the face of
strife between hostile kindreds, it is shown in the war of tribal factions, and more specifically in
the blood-feud. A man’s kindred are his avengers; and, as it is their right and honour to avenge him,
so it is their duty to make amends for his misdeeds, or else maintain his cause in fight. Step by
step, as the power of the State waxes, the self-centred and self-helping autonomy of the kindred
wanes. Private feud is controlled, regulated, put, one may say, into legal harness; the avenging and
the protecting clan on the slain and the slayer are made pledges and auxiliaries of public justice.” 1
Frederick Pollock & Frederic W. Maitland, The History of English Law Before the Time of
Edward I 31 (2d ed. 1898).[Blacks Law 8th]