It was a landed estate that served as the lowest administrative and judicial unit in rural areas.
In a lordship, the functions of economic and legal management are assigned to a lord, who, at the same time, is not endowed with indispensable rights and duties of the sovereign.
In return for these privileges the lord was liable to forfeit his rights if he neglected to protect and defend the tenant or did anything injurious to the feudal relation.
[1] In England, every seignory now existing must have been created before the statute Quia Emptores (1290), which forbade the future creation of estates in fee-simple by subinfeudation.
Because a fief originated out of a bond between vassal and lord for military service, vassalage was personal not heritable.
The vassal's heir was able to retain the heerlijkheid through the commendation ceremony, the process of paying homage and swearing fealty officiated at the head manor court.
Most German lordships were mediate, which meant that their lords and inhabitants owed allegiance to a territorial ruler — such as a duke, a margrave, a count, a prince, a prince-elector or a prince-bishop — who exercised a number of sovereign rights over them, including high justice, taxation and military conscription.