Definition
In English property law, admittance is the formal act by which a lord of a manor gives possession of a copyhold estate to a new tenant. It is the copyhold equivalent of livery of seisin for freehold land — the ceremony or act through which title passes and the new tenant acquires seisin of the land. Admittance was one of three essential formalities in the conveyance of copyhold: surrender (by the outgoing tenant), presentment (before the manorial court), and admittance (by the lord).
Admittance occurred in three recognized forms depending on how the tenancy became available:
1. Upon voluntary grant — where the land had escheated or reverted to the lord, who then grants it to a new tenant of his own initiative.
2. Upon surrender — where the former tenant formally surrendered the copyhold, and the lord admitted the surrenderee (the person nominated by the surrendering tenant or designated by deed).
3. Upon descent — where the former tenant died, and the lord admitted the heir. This is sometimes called admittance on descent.
Until admittance was completed, the prospective tenant held no legal estate in the copyhold, even if surrender or devise had already occurred. The act of admittance was recorded in the manorial rolls, which served as the copyhold equivalent of a title register.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Permission to enter; the act of granting or gaining entry; also, actual entrance or reception.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "The act of admitting. Permission to enter; the power or right of entrance; also, actual entrance; reception." Webster's also notes older senses of concession or allowance (marked obsolete) and admissibility.
The gap is meaningful. In ordinary English, admittance describes the permission or act of physically entering a place — a person gains admittance to a building, an event, or a presence. The legal term is narrower and more technical: it refers exclusively to the formal transfer of possession in copyhold tenure, a specific English property law mechanism. The two senses share the notion of being "let in," but the legal meaning is a precise conveyancing act with legal consequences for title, not mere permission to enter. A researcher encountering "admittance" in historical legal documents should not read it in its common sense.
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Why It Matters in Research
Admittance is a term anchored almost entirely in English copyhold tenure, a form of landholding that was progressively abolished in England and had no true equivalent transplanted to American law. Researchers working in:
English manorial records, Chancery proceedings, or property treatises before the Law of Property Act 1922 (which effectively abolished copyhold) will encounter admittance as an active legal concept. After 1926, when copyhold was converted to freehold by statute, admittance becomes a historical term only.
American legal sources rarely use admittance in this technical property sense. When American dictionaries (including Black's) include the term, they do so as a matter of completeness for English law — researchers should treat it as a flag for English rather than American jurisdiction.
Trap for historical researchers: In older English sources, the word "admission" sometimes appears where "admittance" would be the more precise term, and the two were occasionally used interchangeably by non-specialist writers. Burrill's is careful to distinguish admittance as the technical form of giving seisin, separate from the surrounding formalities. Do not conflate an admission to a court, a guild, or a religious body — also common in historical records — with the copyhold-specific act of admittance.
The manorial roll is the document that makes admittance legally operative and evidentially traceable. Researchers tracking title chains in English copyhold land must locate the relevant roll entry; without it, admittance cannot be proven even if surrender occurred.
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Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries are in close agreement on the core definition and the three-part typology. All five sources define admittance as the act of giving possession of a copyhold estate, and all cite or adopt the framework from Blackstone's Commentaries (2 Bl. Com. 366–370).
Burrill's is the most analytically useful of the five. It explicitly frames admittance as the copyhold analogue to livery of seisin for freehold, situates it within the trio of formalities (surrender, presentment, admittance), and cites both Blackstone and Stephens's Commentaries and Burton's Real Property for the procedural detail. This framing — admittance as functional equivalent to livery of seisin — is the most important structural point and is underemphasized in the Black's entries.
Rapalje & Lawrence adds the useful practical gloss that in theory the lord "admits" the new tenant, treating the relationship as one of acceptance rather than mere conveyancing mechanics — a distinction that occasionally mattered in manorial court disputes over whether a lord could refuse admittance.
What historical sources largely omit: none of the dictionary entries address the consequences of a lord's wrongful refusal to admit, the role of the manorial court baron in the process, or the distinction between legal and equitable interests in copyhold before admittance. Researchers needing that depth must go to Blackstone directly or to Holdsworth's History of English Law.
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Jurisdictional Note
Admittance in its technical legal sense is exclusively English law. It never took root in American jurisdictions, which did not adopt copyhold tenure. Scottish and Irish property law developed differently and use distinct terminology. Researchers in Commonwealth jurisdictions should note that copyhold abolition in England (completing in 1926) renders admittance a historical term in all modern common law systems.
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