a. and sb. [ad. med.L. conventiōnārius: see CONVENTION + -ARY.] Applied to tenants and tenure on terms originally fixed by convention as distinguished from custom, or presumed to have been so.
But the terms had themselves in fact become customary when the word is met with in Eng., as applied to a peculiar form of tenure existing in Cornwall and parts of Devonshire: see quots.
1602. Carew, Cornwall, I. 38/2. The ordinary couenants of most conventionary tenants are to pay due Capons, [etc.].
1607. Norden, Surv. Dial., 48. They are helde only a kinde of conventionary Tenants, whome the custome of the Mannor doth onely call to do their services at the Court.
1807. Complete Farmer (ed. 5), I. s.v., Conventionary rents, a term applied to the reserved rents of life leases.
1828. Barnewall & Cressw., Rep., VIII. 738 (Rowe v. Brenton). That the plaintiff’s land is a conventionary tenement of the manor of Tewington, and that … such tenements were held to the tenants, their heirs, and assigns from 7 years to 7 years renewable for ever.
1883. Pollock, Land Laws, App. 204. The peculiar conventionary holdings of the Cornish mining country, where the tenant has an inheritable interest, but must be re-admitted every seven years.
1884. Daily News, 19 March, 2/6. Two heriots and the conventionary rent were demanded, equal to the ground rent being paid to the landlord five times over for that year.
B. sb. a. A conventionary tenant. b. A conventionary tenure.
1828. Barnewall & Cressw. (as above), VIII. 762. A class of tenants called free conventionary tenants, distinguished from free tenants, and from native conventionaries. Ibid., 745. One messuage … to hold in conventionary from the feast of St. Michael in the 7 Ed. I., to the end of 7 years next following not completed.
