Under the feudal system in England, a feoffee (/fɛˈfiː, fiːˈfiː/) is a trustee who holds a fief (or "fee"), that is to say an estate in land, for the use of a beneficial owner.
[1] The purpose of such an action was two-fold: The effect was that on a man's death he appeared to hold little or no land, whilst in reality he had full use of it and of the revenues derived from it.
If he was thought by the county escheator to have been a tenant-in-chief, a jury for an Inquisition post mortem would be convened to enquire into what manors he held from the king and who was his legal heir.
Likewise, such a charter may be misinterpreted by the modern observer as signifying that those named as recipients of the conveyance are themselves beneficial owners in the form of a commercial partnership, and therefore may be mistaken for wealthy men.
The modern equivalent of a feoffee to uses is the trustee, one who holds a legal and managerial ownership in trust for the enjoyment benefit and use of the beneficiary.