The Economic and Cultural Impact of the Origins of Property: 1180-1220

The development of property in England between 1176 and 1220 was the result of a complicated interaction between social mores made law and bureaucratic action. In the Assize of Northampton, Henry II undertook regular supervision of proprietary decisions to prevent his men from preparing a rebellion like that of 1173-74. The supervision assumed peacetime feudal norms, but in the hands of bureaucratic justices even prior to 1200 this supervision increasingly restricted lords' power to discipline their tenants, at a time when disciplinary power was far more important than proprietary decisions. By 1220, the relative importance of proprietary matters and disciplinary power had been reversed. But proprietary action by the lord was so attenuated that seisin—lawful possession—was possible now even without lordly acceptance. Such insulation of the tenant from his lord was a bond established between the tenant and his tenement: property.