1. Roman law. The soil of an inheritance; an agrarian estate. • Servi addicti glebae (“slaves bound to the land”) were serfs attached to and passing with the estate.
2. Eccles. law. Land possessed as part of the endowment or revenue of a church or ecclesiastical benefice.
“Diocesan glebe land forms the largest section of ecclesiastical conveyancing work by virtue of the large number of glebe properties which are held in each diocese. Such land is governed primarily by the Endowments and Glebe Measure 1976 … , which in technical terms defines ‘glebe land’ as ‘land vested in the incumbent of a benefice (when the benefice is full) as part of the endowments of the benefice other than parsonage land’; and ‘diocesan glebe land’ as ‘glebe land acquired by a diocesan board of finance under any provision of this Measure and any other land acquired by such a board, being land which by virtue of, or of any enactment amended by, a provision of this Measure is to be held as part of the diocesan glebe land of the diocese.’ ” David Rees, Ecclesiastical Conveyancing 8 (1989).
