FEE  , an

estate in land held of a superior lord on condition of the performance of homage or service (see FEUDALISM) . In English law " fee " signifies an estate of inheritance (i.e. an estate descendable to the heirs of the grantee so long as there are any in existence) as opposed to an estate for life . It is divisible into three species: (1) fee simple; (2) conditional fee; (3) fee tail . (See ESTATE.) A fee farm rent is the rent reserved on granting a fee farm, i.e. land in fee simple, to be held by the tenant and his heirs at a yearly rent . It is generally at least one-fourth of the value of the land at the time of its reservation . (See RENT.) The word " fee " has also the sense of remuneration for services, especially the honorarium paid to a doctor, lawyer or member of any other profession . It is also used of a fixed sum paid for the right to enter for an examination, or on admission to member-ship of a university or other society . This sense of the word is taken by the New English Dictionary to be due to a use of " fee " in its feudal sense, and to represent a sum paid to the holder of an office " in fee." The etymology of the Med . Lat. feudum, feodum or feum, of its French equivalent fief, and English " fee," in Scots law " feu (q.v.), is extremely obscure . (See the New English Dictionary, s.v . " Fee.") There is a common Teutonic word represented in Old English as fech or fee, in Old High German as fehu, meaning property in the shape of cattle (cf. modern Ger . Vieh, Dutch vee) .

The old

Aryan peku gives Sanskrit papa, Lat. pecus, cattle, whence petunia, money . The O . Eng. feoh, in the sense of money, possibly survives in " fee," honorarium, though this is not the view of the New English Dictionary . The common explanation of the Med . Lat. feudum or feodum, of which Ducange (Glossarium, s.v.) gives an example from a constitution of the emperor Charles the Fat of the year 884, is that it is formed from the Teutonic fehu, property, and od, wealth (cf . AnaomuM and UDAL) . This would apparently restrict the original meaning to movable property, while the early applications of feudum are to the enjoyment of something granted in return for service (beneficium) . Another theory takes the origin to be fehu alone, in a particular sense of wages, payment for services . This leaves the d- of feudum unexplained . Some have taken the origin to be a verbal form feudare-= foam dare . Another theory finds the source in the O .