mandatory after 1677. Gradually the delivery of this deed to the new owner replaced the symbolic act of delivering an object representing the land, such as a piece of the soil. The feoffee (transferee) was henceforth said to hold his property "of" or "from" the feoffor, in return for a specified service (money payments were not used until much later). What service was given depended on the exact form of feudal land tenure involved. Thus, for every parcel of land, during the feudal era there existed a historical unbroken chain of feoffees, in the form of overlords, ultimately springing from feoffments made by William the Conqueror himself in 1066 as the highest overlord of all. This pattern of land-holding was the natural product of William the Conqueror claiming an allodial title to all the land of England following the Norman Conquest of 1066, and parcelling it out as large fees in the form of feudal baronies to his followers, who then in turn subinfeudated (i.e. sub-divided) the lands comprising their baronies into manors to be held from them by their own followers and knights (in return, originally, for military service). When the feoffee sub-enfeoffed his holding, for example when he created a new manor, he would become overlord to the person so enfeoffed, and a mesne lord (i.e. intermediate lord) within the longer historical chain of title. In modern English land law, the theory of such long historical chains of title still exists for every holding in fee simple, although for practical purposes it is not necessary at the time of conveyance to recite the descent of the fee from its creation. By the early 20th century it had become traditional to show the chain of former owners for a minimum period of 15 years only, as occupation for 12 years now barred all prior claims. And the establishment, in 1925, of a national Land Registry (a voluntary public record of land ownership) obviated the need for recitals of descent for registered parcels. Asia In China and some other South East Asian countries, from the time of the Zhou Dynasty (1046–256 BC) relatives and descendants of the ruling family were granted enfeoffments in return for pledging military service to the King or Emperor in times of war. The practice continued into the Han Dynasty, with people such as Cai Lun who was enfeoffed as the lord of a small village,