SERJEANTY. Tenure by serjeanty was a form of land holding under the feudal system, intermediate between tenure by knight-service (q.v.) and tenure in socage. It originated in the assignation of an estate in land on condition of the performance of a certain duty, which can hardly be described more exactly than as not being that of knight-service. Its essence, according to Pollock and Maitland, might be described as "servantship," the discharge of duties in the household of king or noble; but it ranged from service in the king's host, distinguished only by equipment from that of the knight, to petty renders scarcely dis tinguishable from those of the rent-paying tenant or socager. The varieties of serjeanty were afterwards increased by lawyers classing for convenience under this head such duties as those of escort service to the abbess of Barking, or of military service on the Welsh border by the men of Archenfield.
Serjeants (servientes) are already entered as a distinct class in Domesday Book (1o86), though not in all cases differentiated from the barons, who held by knight-service. Sometimes, as in the case of three Hampshire serjeanties—those of acting as king's marshal, of finding an archer for his service, and of keeping the gaol in Winchester castle—the tenure can be definitely traced as far back as Domesday. It is probable, however, that many sup posed tenures by serjeanty were not really such, although so de scribed in returns, in inquests after death, and other records. The simplest legal test of the tenure was that serjeants, though liable to the feudal exactions of wardship, etc., were not liable to scutage; they made in place of this exaction special composition with the Crown.
The germ of the later distinction between "grand" and "petty" serjeanty is found on the Great Charter (1215), the king there renouncing the right of prerogative wardship in the case of those who held of him by the render of small articles. The legal doc
trine that serjeanties were (a) inalienable, (b) impartible, led to the "arrentation," under Henry III., of the lands of which had been partly alienated, and which were converted into socage tenures, or, in some cases, tenures by knight-service. Grad ually the gulf widened, and "petty" serjeanties, consisting of renders (usually a bow, sword, dagger or other small thing be longing to war), together with serjeanties held of mesne lords, sank into socage, while "grand" serjeanties, the holders of which performed their service in person, became alone liable to ward ship and marriage.
When the military tenure of knight-service was abolished at the Restoration, that of grand serjeanty was retained, it being then limited in practice to the performance of certain duties at coronations, the discharge of which as a right has always been coveted. The most conspicuous are those of champion, appurte nant to the Dymokes' manor of Scrivelsby, and of supporting the king's right arm, appurtenant to that of Worksop.
The title of serjeant as a household officer is still preserved in the king's serjeants-at-arms, etc.
The best summary of tenure by serjeanty is in Pollock and Mait land, Hist. Eng. Law; McKechnie's Magna Carta (1905) should also be consulted ; and for Domesday the Victoria History of Hampshire, vol. i. The best list of serjeanties is in the Red Book of the Exchequer ("Rolls" series), but the Testa de Nevill (Record Commission) contains the most valuable records concerning them. (J. H. R.)