lay-fee Obs. exc. Hist.
Forms: see lay a. (and n.9) and fee n.2; also 4 laifeo, 5 laife, layfe, 6 laffye.
[a. AF. lai fe.]
1. A fee or estate in land held in consideration of secular services, as distinguished from an ecclesiastical fee. † Also phr. of lay fee (cf. fee n.2 1 b).
| c 1290 Beket 560 in S. Eng. Leg. 122 Ȝif ani man of holi churche halt ani-þing of lay-fe [c 1300 (Percy Soc.) 556 holdeth eni laifeo]..he schal done þere-fore Þe seruice þat to þe kinge bi-fallez. c 1330 R. Brunne Chron. (1810) 285 ‘Sir’, þe bisshop said, ‘of þis we pray þe, Þat..nouht of our lay fe Be taxed with non of ȝours’. ? a 1400 Plowman's Tale 741 Therewith they purchase hem lay fee In londe there hem liketh best. 1553 Becon Reliques of Rome (1563) 246 b, Al y{supt}..maken holy churche Layfee, y{supt} is halowed and blessed. 1651 G. W. tr. Cowel's Inst. 148 An Inventory of such Goods and Chattels, as they shall finde in the Lay-fee of the party deceased. 1750 Carte Hist. Eng. II. 283 Arrogating to his own courts the cognisance of lay-fees in the case of persons of the first quality. 1868 Freeman Norm. Conq. (1876) II. viii. 182 Besides his archbishopric, he held the county of Evreux as a lay fee. |
† 2. The laity, lay people collectively. Orig. in phr. of the lay fee. Obs.
| 1398 Trevisa Barth. De P.R. i. (1495) 6 It suffyceth to theym whyche ben of the lay fee or state. c 1425 Found. St. Bartholomew's 19 The peple of boith ordres, the Clergie And the laife. c 1449 Pecock Repr. ii. i. 136, I wote not that it is worth forto talke in resonyng with eny persoon of the laife vpon eny mater of Goddis lawe. 1481 Caxton Godfrey xv. 43 For tamende clerkes & layefee. a 1529 Skelton Replyc. 267 Why iangle you suche jestes..To the people of lay fee. 1536 Exhort. to North. in Furnivall Ballads fr. MSS. I. 308 The intollerable exactions that longe he dyd vsse the laffye emonges, and also the spiritualtye. 1545 Primer, Injunction, To..all other of the Clergie: as also al estates and degrees of the laye fee. 1568 Grafton Chron. II. 118 A great multitude, of the which the king pardoned a great number of the laye Fee. 1641 Prynne Antip. 79 More of their Tenants went to the Kings warres, then of the Tenants of them of the Lay fee. |