Livery of seisin

From Genealogy of the Higbe family by Patterson, D. Williams.

"At ye Reguest of Edward Higby, the Eighteenth of April 1534 Thomas Whitson and Martha his wife doth declare yt John Finch Sener did some time in October last, gve into his lot then sold unto Edward Higby;. and gave the sd Edward Higby possession by breaking a twig and digging a turfe and delivered ye turfe and twig to ye sd Higby and sd by vartue of this I give you possession of this my lot and all ye meadow and out land belonging to it.

"John Joery Clark."

This occurred in England.

It is known as a livery of seisin.

Livery of seisin (/ˈseɪzɪn/) is an archaic legal conveyancing ceremony, formerly practised in feudal England and in other countries following English common law, used to convey holdings in property. The term livery is closely related to if not synonymous with delivery used in some jurisdictions in contract law or the related law of deeds. The oldest forms of common law provided that a valid conveyance of a feudal tenure in land required physical transfer by the transferor to the transferee in the presence of witnesses of a piece of the ground itself, in the literal sense of a hand-to-hand passing of an amount of soil, a twig, key to a building on that land, or other token.