Definition of "serjeanty" []

• A form of land ownership under the feudal system, where a family held an estate in exchange for rendering a service to their liege lord. (noun)

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• "We will not by reason of any small serjeanty which any one may hold of us by the service of rendering to us knives, arrows, or the like, have wardship of his heir of the land which he holds of another lord by knight's service."
• "As all those who held direct of the crown by military service (for those who held "by serjeanty" appear to have been classed apart), from earls downwards, were alike "barons," the great difference in their position and importance must have led, from an early date, to their being roughly divided into "greater" and "lesser" barons, and indeed, under Henry II., the _Dialogus de Scaccario_ already distinguishes their holdings as"
• "-- Rowland le Sarcere held one hundred and ten acres of land in Hemingston by serjeanty; for which, on Christmas day every year, before our sovereign lord the King of England, he should perform altogether, and at once, a leap, puff up his cheeks, therewith making a sound, and let a crack."