Historically, a tenement represents the subject matter of tenure, encompassing both corporeal hereditaments, such as land and masonry, and incorporeal hereditaments, including advowsons, tithes, and offices of honor. Under the feudal system established following the Norman Conquest, all land was held mediately or immediately of the Crown; thus, a tenement was not merely a physical structure but a legal holding defined by the services and obligations owed to the lord. This encompassed everything from grand serjeanty to socage, marking the fundamental unit of the feudal estate.
In the context of the English nobility and the College of Arms, tenements often included manors and seigneurial rights that formed the economic and jurisdictional basis of a peer's status. The legal evolution of the term eventually narrowed in common parlance to signify dwelling houses, but in strict legal and heraldic history, it remains the technical designation for any feudal interest that could be granted to a tenant in fee, for life, or for years.