Definition
A feodary was an officer of the Court of Wards in English law, appointed by the Master of that court pursuant to statute (32 Hen. VIII, c. 26 in Black's; c. 46 in Bouvier's). The feodary's duties were threefold: (1) to attend with the escheator in each county at the formal finding of offices of lands, serving as the Crown's evidentiary witness as to the value and tenure of lands held in chief; (2) to survey ward-lands after the office was found and to rate them; and (3) to assign dower to the king's widows and to receive rents from ward-lands on the Crown's behalf. The office was abolished by statute 12 Car. II, c. 24, enacted at the Restoration in 1660, which swept away the Court of Wards and most surviving incidents of feudal tenure.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): An accomplice; also, an ancient officer of the Court of Wards.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "An accomplice" — illustrated by Shakespeare's usage ("Art thou a feodary for this act?") — and separately noted as "an ancient officer of the court of wards."
The gap here is sharp. In ordinary literary English, feodary appears principally as a Shakespearean synonym for accomplice or confederate, a meaning entirely unrelated to its legal sense. A researcher encountering the word in a non-legal historical text should not assume the legal officer is intended. The two meanings appear to derive from different roots and have no functional overlap. The legal office was a formal Crown appointment; the literary use is figurative and pejorative.
Common Confusion
The discrepancy between the statute numbers cited by the source dictionaries (32 Hen. VIII, c. 26 in Black's versus c. 46 in Bouvier's) reflects a common problem with early modern English statute references, where chapter numbering varied across printed editions. Researchers should not treat either citation as definitively controlling without verification against a primary text of the regnal statutes. Neither version alters the substantive description of the office.
Feodary should not be confused with feodary in its adjectival feudal sense (meaning "of or relating to a feud or fee"), which appears in some older texts. Context generally resolves the ambiguity.
Why It Matters in Research
This is an extinct office with a hard end date: 12 Car. II, c. 24 (1660). Any legal document referencing a feodary was produced before that date, placing it firmly in the pre-Restoration feudal tenure system. This is useful for dating and contextualizing historical instruments.
Researchers working in early modern English land records, particularly inquisitions post mortem or wardship proceedings, will encounter feodaries as named officers whose findings carry evidentiary weight in the record. Their presence signals that the Crown claimed a feudal interest — typically tenure in capite or knight service — in the lands at issue.
The Court of Wards generated substantial documentary records during its existence (roughly 1540–1660). Feodary returns, surveys, and valuations form part of that archive and are distinct from the escheator's inquisitions, though the two officers worked in tandem. Conflating their respective functions will distort an understanding of how wardship was administered.
Rapalje & Lawrence's entry for feodary appears to be a printing artifact or misbound reference — the text provided ("respect as if she were unmarried") belongs to a different entry entirely. Researchers relying on Rapalje & Lawrence for this term should treat that source as providing no substantive guidance.
The literary meaning (accomplice) appears in Shakespeare's Cymbeline and Measure for Measure. If a corpus search surfaces feodary in a literary or non-legal context, the accomplice meaning is almost certainly intended.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's (both editions) and Bouvier's agree on the essential character of the office: Crown-appointed, Court of Wards-based, responsible for attendance at the finding of offices, valuation, and survey of ward-lands. Bouvier adds the dower-assignment function explicitly and is the only source to cite the abolition statute directly (12 Car. II, c. 24), which is the more useful reference for researchers. Black's references Kennett's Glossary as an authority, pointing toward antiquarian rather than purely legal sources for this term — appropriate given the office's obsolescence.
No source disputes the other's account of the office's functions; the differences are of detail and emphasis rather than substance. The statute chapter discrepancy noted above is the most significant textual divergence.
Webster's 1913 usefully captures both the literary and the legal senses, and its quotation from Shakespeare is the clearest illustration of the non-legal usage. Historical legal dictionaries understandably ignore the literary meaning; researchers using those sources exclusively would miss it.
Jurisdictional Note
The feodary was an exclusively English office with no direct American counterpart. The Court of Wards and all its officers were abolished before the founding of the American colonies as a legal matter (1660), and colonial American law did not transplant the institution. This term has no operative significance in American jurisdictions.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Court of Wards (primary)
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Feudal Tenure (for the broader tenure system within which the office operated)
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Escheator (for the officer who worked alongside the feodary)