sergeanty, serjeanty Hist.
(ˈsɑːdʒəntɪ)
Forms: α. 5–7 sergeantie (5 sergeaunte), 6 sergeauntie, sergentie, 7– sergeanty. β. 4–5 seriauntye, 5 serjantie, (pl. serjaunteez), 7 seriantie, serieanty, serjeantie, 7– serjeanty.
[a. OF. serjantie, sergentie, f. serjant, sergent: see sergeant n. and -y.]
(The usual spelling is now serjeanty.)
1. A form of feudal tenure on condition of rendering some specified personal service to the king.
| 1467 Rolls of Parlt. V. 595/2 The rent of the Sergeantie, and of the small parcellz of Serjaunteez of oure Counteez of Notyngh' and Derb'. 1468 Ibid. 605/2 Other fermes to us of Serjanties or otherwise. 1477 Ibid. VI. 171/1 Smale parcells of Serjantie in diverse parcells,..thre Roodes of Serjantie. 1610 Holland Camden's Brit. i. 464 Baldwin Le Pettour..held certaine lands, by Sergeanty. 1643 Baker Chron., Rich. II 1 John Wiltshire Citizen of London, by reason of a Moyitie of the Manour of Heydon, holden in Sergeantie, claimed to hold a towell for the King to wipe with when he went to meat. 1880 Harting Extinct Brit. Anim. i. 82 Several grants of land..held by the serjeanty of keeping..boar-hounds. 1906 Athenæum 18 Sept. 269/1 A little criticism is perhaps invited by the interesting list of serjeanties with which the volume closes. |
b. Distinguished as grand sergeanty and petit (or petty) serjeanty.
In their AF. form, these terms occur in the 13th c. According to Britton (c 1292), grand serjeanty obliges the tenant to a service ‘touching the defence of the country’, such as acting as marshal, putting an army in the field, or finding a horseman and his equipment for the army, while petit serjeanty binds him to a service ‘amounting to half a mark or less’, such a carrying to the king a bag, a brooch, an arrow, or a bow without string, etc. Later writers give more or less differing accounts: see quots. The Latin of Magna Carta (1215) has occasione parvarum sergantisarum (v.r. parvæ serganteriæ).
| (a) 1449 Rolls of Parlt. V. 167/2 His Auncestres..have holden..the Manoir..by Graunte Sergeaunte. 1523 [see (b) below]. a 1625 Sir H. Finch Law (1636) 154 Euery grand Serieanty is a tenure in chiefe, being of none but of the King, to doe vnto him a more speciall seruice whatsoeuer by the person of a man, as to beare his Banner or Lance, to lead his horse, to carry the sword before him at his coronation [etc.]. 1695 Gibson Camden's Brit. 55 Brienston..was held in Grand Sergeanty by a pretty odd jocular tenure. 1766 Blackstone Comm. II. v. 73 Such was the tenure by grand serjeanty, per magnum servitium, whereby the tenant was bound, instead of serving the king generally in his wars, to do some special honorary service to the king in person; as to carry his banner, his sword, or the like; or to be his butler, champion, or other officer at his coronation. 1818 Cruise Digest (ed. 2) III. 118 The office of High Steward was originally annexed to the manor of Hinckley in Leicestershire, and held in grand serjeanty. 1875 Stubbs Const. Hist. I. xi. 344 These [offices] had become..hereditary grand serjeanties. |
| (b) 1523 Fitzherb. Surv. 12 And all these tenauntes maye holde their landes by dyuers tenures..as by..graunt sergentie, petyte sergentie, franke almoyne. 1544 tr. Littleton's Tenures 37 b, Tenure by Petyte sergeauntye. 1616 Bullokar Eng. Expos., Pettie Sergeantie, a tenure of lands, holden of the king, by yeilding to him, a Buckler, Arrow, Bow, or such like seruice. 1875 Digby Real Prop. i. (1876) 49 When land was held of the king not by military service, but under the obligation to render some small thing ‘belonging to war’, as, for instance, to ‘yield to him yearly a bow or a sword, or a dagger, or a knife, or a pair of gilt spurs, or an arrow or divers arrows’, this was called tenure by petit serjeanty. |
† 2. ‘Sergeants’ or squires collectively. Obs.
| c 1330 R. Brunne Chron. Wace (Rolls) 11979 Alle armed men,..Wyþoute fotmen & seriauntye [v.r. sargeancie]. |