Law. Forms: 5 feffer, (6 -or), -our(e, fefowre, 6 feofer, -ffour, 7 -ffeer, 5– feoffor, 6– feoffer. [ad. AF. feoffour, f. feoffer FEOFF v.]
1. One who makes a feoffment to another. Rarely Hist. in feudal sense: One who invests another with a fief.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 153. Fefowre, feofatus.
1483. Act 1 Rich. III., c. 1. The Sellers, Feoffors, Donors, or Granters.
1594. West, 2nd Pt. Symbol, Chancerie, § 37. The feoffor … may reenter and have hys land again.
1613. Sir H. Finch, Law (1636), 133. A good Liuerie of seisin, if the other enter in the feoffors life time.
1767. Blackstone, Comm., II. II. xx. 311. Unless the feoffor … hath given it a longer continuance.
1865. Nichols, Britton, II. 6. The first feoffor or the lord of the most ancient fee has a better right.
1888. Eng. Hist. Rev., III. 41. Can a feoffer dispose of a fief without the written consent of his feodary?
ǁ 2. Formerly often misused for FEOFFEE.
1426. E. E. Wills (1882), 71. I praye my feffours þat þay wolde enfeffe Philippe Dene on .vj. marces of rente during þe terme of his lif.
1535. J. Atwell, in Wells Wills (1890), 82. My feoffers of all my lands in B[romfelde].
1603. H. Crosse, Vertue’s Commonwealth (1878), 91. Why hath hee more plentie of bastardly riches than other men, but that hee is a bayliffe, steward, & Feoffer in trust, to dispose & lay out in almes and charitable workes?
