Byrne's Dictionary of Irish Local History (23 page)

extent land
. Land newly brought into cultivation.
See
assart.

eyre, justices in.
In Ireland in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, the circuit of justices of the
Dublin Bench
itinerating throughout the country to hear all pleas and to inquire into matters of concern to the crown. Justices of the eyre were therefore also inspectors of local administration. The eyre helped unify the administration of law in Ireland for the justices heard pleas before the fixed courts as well as in the localities. It was an omnicompetent court unlike the commissions of
oyer et terminer
which were issued to deal with specific individual crimes or an epidemic of a similar type of crime. Although in England there were a number of eyres, there was but one in Ireland – the General Eyre. The eyre fell into disuse because of the irregularity and slowness of the circuit. The speed and efficiency of the regular fixed courts in Dublin proved more attractive to litigants seeking redress. Its duties were also eroded by the emerging justices of
gaol delivery
and justices of
assizes
. The last eyre was held in 1322 in Co. Meath.

face
. The front of a parchment roll as opposed to the dorse (the back).

faculty
. In church usage, the power to perform priestly duties or occupy some clerical position, both of which are licensed by a superior ecclesiastic. In the Anglican church the granting and deprivation of faculties was a function of the post-Reformation court of faculties.
See
prerogative and faculties, court of the.

falcon, falconet
. Sixteenth-century light ordnance which fired shot weighing about one pound.

falding
. A coarse woollen or linen cloth.

falling
. (Ir.,
fallaing
) A mantle or cloak.

fardel
. 1: A bundle or pack 2: A fourth part, as in a bread farl.

farl
. A quarter-circle cut from a circular cake of thin bread.

farm
. 1: Originally farm meant food but from the fifteenth century meant rent in cash or kind. The modern use of the word as a tract of land devoted to pasture or cultivation probably derives from leasehold tenure which required the payment of a fixed yearly amount or farm. Thus the condition of tenure (a payment) became applied to its subject (a piece of land) 2: The privatisation of tax collection. Before the emergence of the modern bureaucratic state, taxes, dues and fees owing to the state or church were farmed or let to authorised persons who collected and retained them in return for the payment of a fixed sum. This was largely a matter of convenience. The state did not have the machinery to collect revenues such as taxes or customs duties and the clergy wished to be spared the burden and agitation of collecting tithe.

farra
. A hen loft or roost in a house.

fascicle
. (L.,
fasciculus
, pl,
fasciculi
) One of the divisions of a book which is issued in instalments.

fassaghe lands
. (Ir.,
fásach
, a desert) Waste lands. The term was used to denote the land lying between the marches of the Pale and the lands of the native Irish which was frequently despoiled by native incursions.
See
maghery.

fasti
. (L.,
fasti dies
, the authorised days, from
fastus
, lawful) A list or calendar of religious festivals, days on which the courts sit, anniversaries or historical events.
Fasti
of the churches contain episcopal and clerical succession lists. (Cotton,
Fasti.
)

fealty
. The oath sworn by a tenant to be faithful to his lord, to respect his person and property and to perform his feudal obligations. It was not required to be performed in the presence of the lord but could be sworn before the steward upon the entry of a son into the tenancy of his deceased father.
See
homage, investiture.

fee
. A
fief
or estate in land. In medieval times land held from a lord conditional upon the rendering of
homage
, military and allied services. Land held ‘in fee' means
freehold
land.

fee-farm grant
. A
fee simple
(freehold) grant to a tenant for an annual fixed rent without any other services but forever. This was of great advantage to the tenant and was offered by lords to lure tenants during periods when there was an abundant supply of land and a scarcity of people to till the land. Land held by fee farm grant was immune from interference by the lord of the manor in that, once fixed, the rents remained unalterable and over the years, as inflation kicked in, the rents became a mere pittance. Freeholders were entitled to dispose of their estates as they saw fit but changes in ownership had to be processed through the manor court and an appropriate
entry fine
paid.

feoffee
. 1: A person who holds land
in fee
directly 2: Feoffees in a conveyance to
use
were family intimates who were granted
seisin
of an estate so that were the lord to die while his heir was a minor the crown would be denied the feudal incidents of
relief, wardship
and
marriage
.

feoffment
. An early form of conveyance effected through the ceremonial livery of
seisin
. Seisin (ownership) was passed when the parties and witnesses to the conveyance physically entered upon the land, the vendor symbolically handed a piece of turf or keys to the purchaser, uttered an appropriate verbal transfer and the transaction was confirmed by a written deed. Deeds of feoffment are recognisable because the action clause contains the phrase ‘given, granted, alienated, bargained and sold, and enfeoffed'. The feoffment, like the
bargain and sale
, was too public an affair for many landowners. A third form of conveyance, the
lease and release
, a secret yet valid instrument, gradually superseded both.

fee simple, tenure in
. Tenure by
freehold
, to all intents and purposes an absolute and unlimited tenure, often requiring the payment of a fixed sum known as a
chief rent
or fee-farm rent. A fee simple estate was held by a person in his own right, free from condition or limitation. The fee simple could pass to any heir unlike the
fee tail
which descended to a single class of heirs (the issue of the donee).
See
allodial tenure, fee-farm grant.

fee tail
. (Fr.,
taillé
, cut down) An estate restricted to a specified line of succession, i.e., to a person and his lawful heirs.
See
entail.

felony
. A grave crime such as murder, burglary and house-breaking which was punishable by death and forfeiture of land and goods.

feme covert
. (Fr., literally, a woman covered by her husband) A doctrine of English common law well into the eighteenth century which held that a married woman, being under the protection of her husband, was to all intents and purposes legally non-existent. When acting with her husband it was considered that she had no independent will and all her actions were excused because they were performed by his command.

feme sole
. (Fr., literally, a woman alone) A spinster, widow or divorcee. A feme sole trader was a married woman entitled to engage in business in her own right independently of her husband.

fencibles
. Soldiers or militiamen intended for service in the country in which they were raised for the duration of hostilities. Between 1793 and 1802 fencible regiments were raised in Britain and Ireland, some of whom, largely Scottish, volunteered for service in Ireland.

fenianism
.
See
Irish Republican Brotherhood.

feodary
. A vassal or feudal tenant who holds land of a superior, subject to homage and services.

feretory
. 1: A shrine for relics 2: A room or chapel reserved as a feretory.

fess
. In heraldry, a broad horizontal band crossing the centre of an escutcheon.

feudal incidents
. The crown's ancient entitlement to
wardship, marriage, relief
and
escheat
which were forgiven by the
Tenures Abolition Act
of 1662.

fever hospitals
. Following harvest failures in 1816 and 1817, Ireland was devastated by a typhus epidemic which lasted until 1819. In order to contain the epidemic fever hospitals, financed by grand jury presentments of up to twice any sum raised by local subscription, were constructed to contain the epidemic. After 1818 fever hospitals were constructed in every county and borough. However, although augmented by the construction of temporary hospitals, they were unable to cope with typhoid on the scale generated by the Great Famine. More people, it appears, died from fever than from malnutrition during the 1840s.
See
ague and Health, General Board of.

fianna
. An ancient Gaelic military order which supported the chief lord and maintained order and whose history is heavily interlaced with the fabulous. It forms part of the Ossianic Cycle which deals with the adventures of Fionn MacCumhaill, his son Oisín, grandson Oscar and other warrior-heroes. (Dillon,
Early Irish literature
, pp. 32–50.)

fiant
. (L.,
Fiant litterae patentes
, make open letters) A warrant under the privy
seal
to
chancery
for the issue of letters
patent
under the great seal for commissions, grants of land, office, privileges or pardons. In the case of grants of land the warrant named the individual beneficiary and specified the value of land to be granted. Fiants were authenticated by the signature of either the sovereign, the lord justice or the lord deputy of the time. In terms of historical value the patent rolls (on which letters patent were recorded) should properly be of greater interest to the historian than the fiants. In many cases, however, letters patent were not enrolled. Furthermore, the patent rolls were destroyed in 1922 and so patents not found in the calendars of patent rolls – and never enrolled – may be found by reference to the fiants which brought them into effect. (
PRI rep. DK
, Appendices to 7–9, 11–13, 15–18, 21;
Irish Fiants of the Tudor sovereigns
.)

fiat
. (L., Let it be done, let there be made) A decree, an authoritative command or order.

fibula
. A brooch, buckle or clasp, often richly ornamented and used to fasten a cloak or other item of dress.

fief
. A feudal estate of land held in return for the payment of military and allied services to the overlord.
See
fee.

field
. In heraldry, the colour of the ground or surface of the shield, usually of metal, colour or fur. The two metals are
or
(gold) and
argent
(silver) and the colours are
gules
(red),
vert
(green),
azure
(blue),
purpure
(purple) and
sable
(black). The furs are
ermine
(white with black spots) and
vair
(bluish-grey and white cup-shaped design).

fieri facias
. Commonly known as ‘fi. fa.', a writ lying for a person who has recovered judgement for debt and damages in the courts which commands the sheriff to levy the amount of the judgement on the defendant's goods. The sheriff has the power to take anything of the defendant except the clothes he is wearing but is not permitted to break open the door of his house to exercise the writ. A stranger's goods in the possession of the defendant are not subject to the writ.

filacer
. An official who filed writs and issued process thereon.

filius/filia
. Son/daughter.

final concord
.
See
fine.

fine
. 1: A payment 2: In land contracts a payment upfront to secure admission to a tenancy (see entry fine) 3: A collusive legal action in which a tenant-in-tail agreed to a judgement being entered against him. It was a fiction initiated to convey a piece of land and confirm a change of ownership or to cancel a previous deed. Originally the tenant allowed himself to be sued for wrongful possession by the person to whom the land was being conveyed, acknowledged the plaintiff's claim, had it approved and then had the title insured by registering it in court. Later the process became a pure formality conducted by lawyers. A final concord (an indented record of the case) was produced in triplicate, the foot of which (the foot of fine) was entered in
common pleas
. The upper left side was retained by the purchaser (the querent), the upper right hand side by the seller (the deforciant). A fictional sum was entered at the bottom of each part together with the seller's warranty to defend the purchaser's title to the property. Post-medieval fines are often accompanied by either a conveyance or a mortgage. Levying a fine was the only means by which a married woman, with the consent of her husband, could dispose of land until 1834.

Fines were also resorted to to bar an entail although the estate produced was a ‘
base fee
', a fee simple estate which persisted only as long as the entail would have continued had it not been barred and which terminated when the entail would have ended. Say Mr Green has a life estate, with remainder to Mr Brown in tail, remainder to Mr White in tail. If Mr Brown bars his entail in favour of Mr Black, Mr Black's estate endures only as long as Mr Brown or any of his issue lives whereupon the original entail becomes active again and the estate devolves to Mr White and his issue. Unlike the
recovery
, levying a fine did not require the consent of the tenant in possession but a recovery was far more effective and produced a fee simple estate. English fines acts in 1489 and 1540 and the Irish Fines Act (10 Chas. I, c. 8, 1634) overturned the prohibition on the barring of entails which the statute of
De Donis Conditionalibus
had sought to restrict. The courts, in any case, were anxious to keep alive the principle of the alienability of land. The 1834 Fines and Recoveries Act (4 & 5 Will. IV, c. 92) abolished the need for fictive collusion by providing for the barring of an entail by the execution of a disentailing assurance. Henceforth the tenant in tail perfected a conveyance using words that a
fee simple
owner used to pass the fee simple. (Megarry,
A manual,
pp. 55–61; Wylie,
Irish land law
, pp. 221–224.)