Register of Mesne Conveyance - Steven J. Coker
Subject: Register of Mesne Conveyance
From: Steven J. Coker
Date: October 16, 1998

R. M. C. is abbreviation for Register of Mesne Conveyance.  In South Carolina
this is an office of the county government where property titles are recorded. 
In recent years many R. M. C. offices have been renamed to remove the word Mesne
From the office title.

In the original Province of Carolina, the lands were owned by the Lords
Proprietors.  The Proprietors would sell lands, but such freeholds were still
subject to quit rents.  These confirmed the feudal status and relationships of
the land, the freeholder, and the superior lords. 

The Lords Proprietors were termed lords paramount.  Persons granted lordships or
manors by the Proprietors and who then granted the same to inferior persons,
were mesne lords.  Similarly, after Carolina became a Royal Province, the King
was the lord paramount.  Persons granted lordships or manors by the King and who
then granted the same to inferior persons would be termed mesne lords.

---------

Extracted From:
  A LAW DICTIONARY ..., SIXTH EDITION, 1856
  by John Bouvier, CHILDS & PETERSON, PHILADELPHIA

REGISTER or REGISTRAR. An officer authorized by law to keep a record called a
register or registry; as the register for the probate of wills. 

CONVEYANCE, contracts. The transfer of the title to land by one or more persons
to another or others. By the term persons is here understood not only natural
persons but corporations. The instrument which conveys the property is also
called a conveyance....

CONVEYANCER. One who makes it his business to draw deeds of conveyance of lands
for others....

MESE. An ancient word used to signify house, probably from the French maison; it
is said that by this word the buildings, curtilage, orchards and gardens will
pass....

MESNE. The middle between two extremes, that part between the commencement and
the end, as it relates to time. 
   Hence the profits which a man receives between disseisin and recovery of
lands are called mesne profits. Process which is issued in a suit between the
original and final process, is called mesne process.
   In England, the word mesne also applies to a dignity: those persons who hold
lordships or manors of some superior who is called lord paramount, and grant the
same to inferior persons, are called mesne lords. 

MEAN. This word is sometimes used for mesne.

QUIT RENT. A rent paid by the tenant of the freehold, by which he goes quit and
free; that is, discharged from any other rent....
   In England, quit rents were rents reserved to the king or a proprietor, on an
absolute grant of waste land, for which a price in gross was at first paid, and
a mere nominal rent reserved as a feudal acknowledgment of tenure....

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