ng, but founded on imperfect information, and,
moreover, coloured by prejudices in favour of the Moslems whom he
studied with so much sympathy. See Klunzinger, _Upper Egypt_, pp. 61
et sqq.; also the last chapter of _The Story of the Church of Egypt_,
by Mrs E. L. Butcher (1897), on the social life and customs.

COPYHOLD, in English law, an ancient form of land tenure, legally
defined as a "holding at the will of the lord according to the custom of
the manor." Though nowadays of diminishing practical importance, its
incidents are historically interesting. Its origin is to be found in the
occupation by villani, or non-freemen, of portions of land belonging to
the manor of a feudal lord. In the time of the Domesday survey the manor
was in part granted to free tenants, in part reserved by the lord
himself for his own uses. The estate of the free tenants is the freehold
estate of English law; as tenants of the same manor they assembled
together in manorial court or court baron, of which they were the
judges. The portion of the manor reserved for the lord (the _demesne_,
or domain) was cultivated by labourers who were bound to the land
(_adscripti glebae_). They could not leave the manor, and their service
was obligatory. These villani, however, were allowed by the lord to
cultivate portions of land for their own use. It was a mere occupation
at the pleasure of the lord, but in course of time it grew into an
occupation by right, recognized first of all by custom and afterwards by
law. This kind of tenure is called by the lawyers _villenagium_, and it
probably marks a great advance in the general recognition of the right
when the name is applied to lands held on the same conditions not by
villeins but by free men. The tenants in villenage were not, like the
freeholders, members of the court baron, but they appear to have
attended in a humbler capacity, and to have solicited the succession to
the land occupied by a deceased father, or the admission of a new tenant
who had purchased the goodwill, as it might be called, of the holding,
paying for such favours certain customary fines or dues. In relation to
the tenants in villenage, the court baron was called the customary
court. The records of the court constituted the title of the villein
tenant, held by copy of the court roll (whence the term "copyhold"); and
the customs of the manor therein recorded formed the real property law
applicable to his case.

Copyhold