Tenant-in-chief

Alright kiddo, you know how sometimes people have to rent a house or an apartment to live in? Well, in a looooong time ago in medieval England, the king was the boss of all the land. And the king would give some of his land to important people like lords or knights, who would have to make sure the land was taken care of and pay the king for the right to use it. And those important people were called tenant-in-chief.

So basically, the tenant-in-chief was someone who was given land by the king and had to take care of it and pay the king for using it. It was kind of like the king was the landlord and the tenant-in-chief was the tenant, but on a MUCH bigger scale.