Definition
An efief is an archaic term for a fee, feod, or feud — that is, a feudal landholding granted by a lord to a vassal in exchange for allegiance and service. The term is effectively synonymous with "fief" and refers to the fundamental unit of land tenure under the feudal system: an estate in land held conditionally, the conditions being loyalty, homage, and typically military or other specified service rendered to the grantor lord.
A related compound form appears in the sources:
FIEF D'HAUBERT: A fief held specifically by the tenure of knight-service — a knight's fee. Under Norman feudal law, this was the quintessential military fief, obligating the tenant to provide armed mounted service to the lord in exchange for the grant of land.
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Common Confusion
EFIEF, FIEF, FEE, FEOD, and FEUD are treated as interchangeable in historical legal sources, and researchers encountering any of these forms should treat them as referring to the same underlying concept: a feudal tenure in land. The apparent variation is largely orthographic and linguistic, not substantive. The word "fee" in modern property law descends directly from this feudal usage, though its meaning has since narrowed and evolved considerably. Do not confuse the feudal "fee" or "fief" with the modern sense of fee as a charge or payment.
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Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in early English or Norman property law, land tenure records, or medieval legal history will encounter "efief," "fief," "feod," and "feud" used interchangeably across sources, often without explanation. Indexing and cross-referencing in historical legal dictionaries is inconsistent: a concept discussed under "FEE" in one source may appear under "FEUD" or "FIEF" in another, with "efief" appearing rarely and sometimes only as a redirect or variant spelling.
The critical navigational point: when tracing the roots of modern fee simple, fee tail, or other freehold estates in common law property, the feudal fief is the ancestor concept. Black's 2nd Edition treats efief as a direct synonym for fief and feod. Researchers should search all variant spellings when working with pre-modern sources, Norman-French legal texts, or early English treatise literature such as Littleton's Tenures or Blackstone's Commentaries.
The compound term FIEF D'HAUBERT is specifically traceable to Norman feudal practice and is cross-referenced in Blackstone's Commentaries (2 Bl. Comm. 62), making it a reliable anchor point when researching the origins of knight-service tenure.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) defines efief as simply "a fee, feod, or feud," treating the term as an orthographic variant rather than a distinct legal concept. The entry is brief and essentially a cross-reference. The more substantive content in the same entry concerns FIEF D'HAUBERT, the Norman knight's fee held by military tenure — grounded in Blackstone's Commentaries.
Historical legal dictionaries generally give greater treatment to FEE, FEUD, and FEODAL SYSTEM as the primary entry points for feudal tenure, with fief and its variants appearing as secondary or redirect entries. Researchers should not expect substantive doctrine under "efief" in any historical source; it is a terminological entry, not a doctrinal one.
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Jurisdictional Note
Feudal tenure was formally abolished in England by the Tenures Abolition Act 1660, and the concept of the fief as an operative legal form has no modern application in common law jurisdictions. Its relevance today is exclusively historical and interpretive — particularly in reading old deeds, conveyances, and treatises in which the feudal vocabulary of tenure persists.
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