It was in exchange for an oath of loyalty.
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Lords owned land, which they did not grant to their vassals, but they did grant the right to live and work on that land as tenants.
A fief.
In the middle ages a lord would grant land to his vassal.vassals
A vassal was a person in a state of mutual obligation with a king, which usually gave the vassal an estate, including manors. A serf was a person in a state of mutual obligation with the lord of a manor. As such the serf was possibly a person who worked on the estate of a vassal. Please see the links below.
The knights were originally the heavy cavalry. The word knight came to be a title, usually given by a monarch, and was regarded as the lowest level of the nobility. A vassal was a person who had a relationship of mutual obligation with a lord. The vassal sword loyalty and obedience, and the lord granted land and protection in exchange. A vassal could be a knight, and a knight could be a vassal, but there was nothing saying they had to be.