A fee (Latin: feudum; French: Seigneurie) was the central element of feudalism and consisted of heritable property or rights granted by an overlord to a vassal who held it in fealty (or "in fee") in return for a form of feudal allegiance and service, usually given by the personal ceremonies of homage and fealty. The fees were often lands or revenue-producing real property held in feudal tenure: these are typically known as fiefs or fiefdoms. A list of several hundred such fees held in chief between 1198 and 1292, along with their holders' names and form of tenure, was published in 3 volumes between 1920-31 and is known as The Book of Fees; it was developed from the 1302 Testa de Nevill. However, not only land but anything of value could be held in fee, including governmental office, rights of exploitation such as hunting or fishing, monopolies in trade, and tax farms. The privilege of minting official coins developed into the concept of seigniorage.

In the 10th and 11th centuries the term "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". It lacked a precise meaning until the middle of the 12th century, when it received formal definition from land lawyers. The manor was, in effect, a small fief.