The Real ownership of land

[[KMA]Avenger]

i wouldn't be here if i couldn't

[Thriller]

friend of mine from the UK explained crown landownership as follows

'The Crown' owns a lot of land. I don't know if the percentage quoted is right.
However 'The Crown' is not quite the same as the private wealth of the Windsor family who currently sit on the throne. The report could well have confused 'The Crown' with 'The Queen's private portfolio'.

Crown land title deeds are held by the British government, although various members of the Royal family may have the use of them, or be allowed to spend some portion of the income from them. An example of such an arrangement would be the land belonging to the Duchy of Cornwall, which is 'Crown' land, but which the Prince of Wales may manage and use the income from. A lot of 'Crown' land is open to the public for hiking etc.. much like your national parks in the US (although grazing livestock on it would probably involve paying rent).

Balmoral Estate in Scotland and Sandringham Estate in Norfolk are the two main examples of land privately owned by the queen.

Most people who own their own houses in the UK are also the full owners of the plot they are built on. (Full ownership is called a 'freehold'). However, our houses and the plots they are built on tend to be quite a bit smaller than you're used to in CAN. It's a more crowded country and land and houses are more expensive.

I know less about farmland, but basically it may be owned directly by the farmer, by some estate (not necessarily royal. It could be some other aristocrat, or a foundation like the endowment fund of an old university, or maybe just a wealthier private landowner/farmer).

[Elongar]

To clarify upon a point of faith:

In the early 16th Century, the growth of humanism and individualism in religion, along with the prevalence of (Catholic) Church abuses, such as the exploitation of indulgences, led to the outbreak of the Lutheran movement, and more generally, Protestantism. Originally, this was just an attack on the way the Catholic Church used its monopoly on European faith for its political and financial gain. Luther thought that the Church had grown too "worldly" and was not fulfilling its role in caring for the spiritual welfare of the people. As a result, he published the 95 Theses, which you may have heard of, which were nailed to the door of the Castle Church, in Wittenberg (allegedly - no historical evidence exists for this, but it's a popular legend).

So originally, the Lutheran movement only sought to repair what was wrong in the Catholic Church, but it gained a momentum of its own when, in 1521, Luther published further tracts that resulted in a complete schism with the Catholic Church and its religious doctrines. Among these doctrines, the ones that Luther shunned in particular were the Seven Sacraments, the fundamentals of Catholic worship that permeated contemporary popular religion.

Where does the English crown come into this? Well, in 1521, Henry VIII (the one with the six wives...) recieved Luther's tracts, and to show both his and his country's devotion to the Pope's religion, he published a highly popular book in response, known as Assertio Septem Sacramentorum (literally, Defence of the Seven Sacraments). For this, the Pope awarded Henry the title Fidei Defensor, or Defender of the Faith. Ironically, it was then revoked when Henry himself split from the Church in 1530. However as a result of the split, the Anglican Church was born, and in 1544, Henry's son, Edward VI was given the title Defender of the (Anglican) Faith.

This title is little more than a formality. One may consider that there was talk of Prince Charles changing the style to Defender of Faith, rather than Defender of the Faith, presumably with a view to being politically correct.

The title of potential significance is that of Supreme Governor of the Anglican Church. Originally, this was styled as the Supreme Head of the Anglican Church, which effectively gave the King the same religious significance as the Pope to Catholics, but this was changed to Governor to placate Catholics later in the 16th Century (and effectively relegating the King back to the realm of us mere mortals). Here, the English Crown is unique in that the Monarch is, theoretically, a higher authority than the other senior clergy (i.e. the Archbishop of Canterbury). In a way, one can see this title as a relic of Henry's attempts to gain control over religion in England, in much the same vein as the split with the Catholic Church in the first place. What relevance this has with respect to land ownership, and specifically Church land ownership, I am not entirely sure.