Under the Feudal System: The amount of land for which the services of an armed knight were due to the sovereign.
Historical writers now agree that the different knight’s fees were not equal in extent (see quots. 1876, 1895); whether they were approximately equal in value is still doubtful.
1387. Trevisa, Higden (Rolls), VII. 309. How meny knyȝtene fees, how meny teme lond [etc.].
1427. Rolls of Parlt., IV. 318/2. Ye subsidees of ye saide Knyghtes Fees with ye rate yrof.
1494. Fabyan, Chron., VII. ccxxii. 246, marg. viij. hydes make a knyghtes fee, by the whiche reason, a knyghts fee shuld welde c. lx. acres.
1602. Carew, Cornwall, 36. Commonly thirtie Acres make a farthing land, nine farthings a Cornish Acre, and foure Cornish Acres a Knight’s fee.
1761. Hume, Hist. Eng., I. App. ii. 251, note. The relief of a barony was twelve times greater than that of a knight’s-fee.
1876. Digby, Real Prop., i. 36. Where land is held by military service every portion amounting to twenty pounds in annual value constitutes a ‘knight’s fee,’ for which the service of a knight fully armed and equipped must be rendered.
1895. Pollock & Maitland, Hist. Eng. Law, I. 235. The term ‘knight’s fee’ does not imply any particular acreage of land. The knight’s fee is no unvarying areal unit; some fees are much larger than others.
