Definition
A form of freehold tenure in English land law by which land was held in fee simple, free from the burdens associated with ancient demesne or copyhold tenure. Frank fee was the standard, "free" form of freehold holding — land held by a tenant at common law with the full incidents of fee simple tenure, as distinguished from land held by the special, restricted tenures applicable to the king's ancient demesne or to copyhold. The tenant of a frank fee could sue and be sued in the ordinary royal courts and was not confined to the manorial or ancient demesne courts that governed inferior tenures. Frank fee land was not exempt from homage, but it was free from the peculiar services and disabilities attached to ancient demesne and copyhold.
In practice, the term describes land that was never part of the ancient demesne of the Crown (i.e., land held by the king at the time of the Domesday survey) and was not held by copy of court roll. All freehold land that did not fall within the category of ancient demesne was, by definition, frank fee.
A secondary significance of the term relates to the effects of a fine (a formal collusive lawsuit used to convey title): if land held as copyhold or ancient demesne was the subject of a fine in the common law courts, the fine operated to convert the tenure into frank fee, elevating the holding to ordinary freehold and extinguishing the special disabilities of the lesser tenure. This conversion effect made the distinction practically important in conveyancing well into the early modern period.
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Common Confusion
Frank fee is easily conflated with fee simple or with frank almoign (frankalmoign). It is not synonymous with fee simple, though all frank fee is held in fee simple — the term specifically denotes tenure that is free from the incidents of ancient demesne and copyhold, not merely a fee simple estate generally. Frank almoign is a separate tenure entirely, applicable to ecclesiastical grants, and is unrelated to frank fee. Researchers encountering "frank fee" in historical sources should not treat it as a generic synonym for freehold.
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Why It Matters in Research
This is primarily a term of historical English land law with no direct modern application in American or Commonwealth jurisdictions. Researchers will encounter it almost exclusively in:
- Pre-nineteenth-century English real property treatises, Year Books, and chancery records
- Early American colonial land title disputes, where the English tenurial structure was nominally adopted
- Historical encyclopedia and digest entries organized around the English feudal tenure system
The critical navigational point is that frank fee is a term defined by contrast. Its meaning is anchored to what it is not — ancient demesne and copyhold — and a researcher who does not understand those terms will not fully grasp the significance of a frank fee classification in a historical document. The corpus connection is direct: entries on ancient demesne, fee simple, and copyhold are the essential companions to this entry.
The conversion-by-fine doctrine is a trap for researchers reading early conveyancing records. When a source notes that land "became frank fee" upon a fine, this signals a change in tenure class, not merely a transfer of title. The legal consequences — access to royal courts, different incidents of tenure, altered descent rules — follow from that change in classification.
Burrill's reference to Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium (F. N. B. 16 D) and the Registrum Omnium Brevium (Reg. Orig.) points to the writ-based context in which frank fee was most litigated: the availability of royal writs depended on whether land was frank fee, and the distinction could determine which court had jurisdiction over a land dispute. This procedural dimension is often overlooked by researchers focused solely on the substantive property law.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Rapalje & Lawrence define frank fee as "freehold lands exempted from all services, but not from homage" — a compressed formulation that captures the core distinction but requires some unpacking. The exemption referenced is from the special manorial services of copyhold and the ancient demesne regime, not from feudal services generally (homage, as noted, still applied).
Burrill is more precise and more useful, supplying the Latin equivalent (liberum feodum or feudum), the Blackstone citations (2 Bl. Com. 368; 3 Bl. Com. 166), and the conversion-by-fine rule. Burrill's statement that "all land that was not ancient demesne was considered as frank fee" offers the cleanest operational definition: the category is residual. It encompasses everything outside the specially encumbered tenures.
Neither source fully addresses the procedural consequences — the nexus between frank fee status and access to royal court writs — which is arguably the most practically significant aspect of the distinction in its historical context. Researchers seeking that dimension should consult Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium directly, or secondary treatments in Pollock & Maitland's History of English Law.
Both dictionaries are in agreement on the core definition and neither presents a divergent account. The term is stable across historical sources; variation tends to arise in how thoroughly secondary sources explain the contrast with ancient demesne rather than in any disagreement about what frank fee itself means.
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Jurisdictional Note
Frank fee is a term of English feudal land law and has no operative significance in modern American, Canadian, or Australian property law. In the rare contexts where it appears in American colonial-era title chains or early state court records, it functions as a historical descriptor of the original tenure rather than as a legally operative classification. Modern courts encountering such references treat them as historical background, not as governing law.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
property_2: Estates in Land — Fee Simple Absolute (The Law Mind Property Law Encyclopedia)
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