Livery of seisin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Livery of seisin is an archaic legal ceremony, once practiced in England and in other countries following English common law, to convey property. The common law in those jurisdictions once provided that a valid conveyance of a fee interest in land required the physical transfer by the transferor to the transferee,in the presence of witnesses, of a piece of the ground (often, in the literal sense of a hand-to-hand passing of an amount of soil), a twig, key, or other symbol.
Livery of seisin could refer to either:
- livery in deed, whereby the parties actually went on to the land, and the transferor symbolically delivered possession of the land by handing over a twig or a clump of earth to the recipient, or
- livery in law, whereby the parties went within sight of the land and the transferor telling the recipient that possession was being given, followed by the recipient entering the land.
[edit] Turf and twig ceremony
The turf and twig ceremony dates from the 12th century, and was practiced regularly during English colonialism to take sovereign possession over unclaimed lands.
The process has taken several forms over the centuries. Dr. Bernulf Hodge in A History of Malmesbury describes the process as:
- "The lucky new Commoner goes to his "given" acre and cuts a turf from the selected site and drops two shillings in the hole made. The High Steward then twitches him with a twig and sticks the twig in the turf, then hands it to him saying, "This turf and twig I give to thee, as free as Athelstan gave to me, and I hope a loving brother thou wilt be." The High Steward then takes the money out of the hole and the new landowner replaces the turf." [1]
The practice was discontinued in the late 17th century.
