Copyhold had long been established in practice before it was formally recognized by the law. At first it was in fact, as it is now in the fictitious theory of the law, a tenancy at will, for which none of the legal remedies of a freeholder were available. In the reign of Edward IV., however, it was held that a tenant in villenage had an action of trespass against the lord. In this way a species of tenant-right, depending on and strongly supported by popular opinion, was changed into a legal right. The nature of the change is vigorously described by Sir Edward Coke, “As I conjecture in Saxon’s, sure I am in the Norman’s time the copyholders were so far subject to the lord’s will, that the lords upon the least occasion (sometimes without any colour of reason, only upon discontentment and malice, sometimes again upon sudden fantastic humour, only to make evident to the world the height of their power and authority) would expel out of house and home their poor copyholders, leaving them helpless and remediless by any course of law, and driving them to one by way of petition; but now copyholders stand upon a sure ground; now they weigh not their lord’s displeasure and shake at every blast of wind; they eat, drink, sleep securely; only having a special care of the main chance, to perform exactly what duties and services soever their term doth require: then let lord frown, the copyholder cares not, knowing himself safe and not within any danger.”

While copyhold was thus converted into a legal estate of the same security as any other, it retained and does still retain many incidents characteristic of its historical origin. The life of copyhold assurance, it is said, is custom. Copyhold is necessarily parcel of a manor, and the freehold is said to be in the lord of the manor. The court roll of the manor is the evidence of title and the record of the special laws as to fines, quit rents, heriots, &c., prevailing in the manor. When copyhold land is conveyed from one person to another, it is surrendered by the owner to the lord, who by his payment of the customary fine makes a new grant of it to the purchaser. The lord must admit the vendor’s nominee, but the form of the conveyance is still that of surrender and re-grant. The lord, as legal owner of the fee-simple of the lands, has a right to all the mines and minerals and to all the growing timber, although the tenant may have planted it himself. Hence it appears that the existence of copyhold tenures may be traced in some parts of the country by the total absence of timber from such lands, while on freehold lands it grows in abundance. Hence also the popular saying that the “oak grows not except on free land.” The copyholder must not commit waste either by cutting down timber, &c., or by neglecting to repair buildings. In such respects the law treats him as a mere lessee,—the real owner being supposed to be the lord. On the other hand, the lord may not enter the land to cut his own timber or open his mines. The limitations of estates usual in respect of other lands, as found in copypold, become subject of course to the operations of its peculiar conditions as to the relation of lord and tenant. An estate for life, or pour autre vie (i.e., for another’s life), an estate entail, or in fee-simple, may be carved out of copyhold.

A species of tenure resembling copyhold prevails in some parts of the country under the name of customary freehold. The land is held by copy of court-roll, but not by will of the lord. The question has been raised whether the freehold of such lands is in the lord of the manor or in the tenant, and the courts of law have decided in favour of the former. In some instances copyhold for lives alone is recognized, and in such cases the lord of the manor may ultimately, when all the lives have dropped, get back the land into his own hands.

The feudal obligations attaching to copyhold tenure have been found to cause much inconvenience to the tenants, while they are of no great value to the lord. One of the most vexatious of these is the heriot, under which name the lord is entitled to seize the tenant’s best beast or other chattel in the event of the tenant’s death. The custom dates from the time when all the copyholder’s property, including the copyholder himself, belonged to the lord, and is supposed to have been fixed by way of analogy to the custom which gave a military tenant’s habiliments to his lord in order to equip his successor. Instances have occurred in quite recent times of articles of great value being seized as heriots for the copyhold tenements of their owners. A race horse worth £2000 or £3000 was thus seized. The fine payable on the admission of a new tenant, whether by alienation or succession, is to a certain extent arbitrary, but the courts long ago laid down the rule that it must be reasonable, and anything beyond two years’ improved value of the lands they disallowed. The inconvenience caused by these feudal incidents of the tenure has led to a series of statutes, having for their object the conversion of copyhold into freehold.

In 1841 an Act was passed for the commutation of manorial rights in respect of lands of copyhold and customary tenure, and in respect of other lands subject to such rights, and for facilitating the enfranchisement of such land and the improvement of such tenure.