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The direct possession and exploitation of land by the lords, called domini, was limited to only a part of the lordship, the "manse do Senhor", and the rest was leased or enjoyed directly by individual subjects or village communities.

However, this usufruct imposed the payment of a heavy series of taxes, fees and other obligations owed to the lord, which in practice meant total, although mostly indirect, control of the means of production and sources of income.

In this context, the fiefs themselves, its most famous component and one of the bases of the dominium, according to recent research, actually constituted a small proportion of the total dominated territories, but had great symbolic significance in aristocratic ideology.