A fief (/fiːf/; Latin: feudum) was a central element in medieval contracts based on feudal law.

It
consisted of a form of property holding or other rights granted by an overlord to a vassal, who
held it in fealty or “in fee” in return for a form of feudal allegiance, services or payments. The
fees were often lands, land revenue or revenue-producing real property like a watermill, held in
feudal land tenure: these are typically known as fiefs or fiefdoms. However, not only land but
anything of value could be held in fee, including governmental office, rights of exploitation such
as hunting, fishing or felling trees, monopolies in trade, money rents and tax farms. There never
existed a standard feudal system, nor did there exist only one type of fief. Over the ages,
depending on the region, there was a broad variety of customs using the same basic legal
principles in many variations.
In ancient Rome, a “benefice” (from the Latin noun beneficium, meaning “benefit”) was a gift of
land (precaria) for life as a reward for services rendered, originally, to the state. In medieval
Latin European documents, a land grant in exchange for service continued to be called a
beneficium (Latin). Later, the term feudum, or feodum, began to replace beneficium in the
documents. The first attested instance of this is from 984, although more primitive forms were
seen up to one hundred years earlier. The origin of the feudum and why it replaced beneficium
has not been well established, but there are multiple theories, described below.

The most widely held theory Is put forth by Marc Bloch that it is related to the Frankish term
*fehu-ôd, in which *fehu means “cattle” and -ôd means “goods”, implying “a moveable object of
value”. When land replaced currency as the primary store of value, the Germanic word *fehu-ôd
replaced the Latin word beneficium. This Germanic origin theory was also shared by William
Stubbs in the 19th century.

A theory put forward by Archibald R. Lewis is that the origin of ‘fief’ is not feudum (or feodum),
but rather foderum, the earliest attested use being in Astronomus’s Vita Hludovici (840). In that
text is a passage about Louis the Pious which says “annona militaris quas vulgo foderum
vocant”, which can be translated as “(Louis forbade that) military provender which they
popularly call ‘fodder’ (be furnished).”

A theory by Alauddin Samarrai suggests an Arabic origin, from fuyū (the plural of fay, whichh
literally means “the returned”, and was used especially for ‘land that has been conquered from
enemies that did not fight’). Samarrai’s theory is that early forms of ‘fief’ include feo, feu, feuz,
feuum and others, the plurality of forms strongly suggesting origins from a loanword. The first
use of these terms was in Languedoc, one of the least-Germanized areas of Europe, and
bordering Muslim Spain, where the earliest use of feuum as a replacement for beneficium can be
dated to 899, the same year a Muslim base at Fraxinetum (La Garde-Freinet) in Provence was
established. It is possible, Samarrai says, that French scribes, writing in Latin, attempted to
transliterate the Arabic word fuyū (the plural of fay), which was being used by the Muslims at
the time, resulting in a plurality of forms (feo, feu, feuz, feuum and others), from which
eventually feudum derived. Samarrai, however, also advises that medieval and early modern
Muslim scribes often used etymologically “fanciful roots” in order to claim the most outlandish
things to be of Arabian or Muslim origin.

In the 10th and 11th centuries the Latin terms for ‘fee’ could be used either to describe dependent
tenure held by a man from his lord, as the term is used now by historians, or it could mean
simply “property” (the manor was, in effect, a small fief). It lacked a precise meaning until the
middle of the 12th century, when it received formal definition from land lawyers.

In English usage, the word “fee” is first attested around 1250–1300 (Middle English); the word
“fief” from around 1605–1615. In French, the term fief is found from the middle of the 13th
century (Old French), derived from the 11th-century terms feu, fie. The odd appearance of the
second f in the form fief may be due to influence from the verb fiever ‘to grant in fee’. In French,
one also finds seigneurie (land and rights possessed by a seigneur or “lord”, 12th century), which
gives rise to the expression “seigneurial system” to describe feudalism.