Why are pubowners called landlords in the U.K.?

Sorry I don’t want to go to the trouble of researching this, and to me all of it is almost axiomatic.

This Question necessarily includes both how it is now, and how it was 1,000 years ago. Does that sound like a recipe for confusion?

Broadly, “landlord” makes the assumption that the guy isn’t merely the operator, but the owner; they’re different.

Broadly, anyone can “operate” a pub and whoever does so must be a “licencee”… but the great majority of operators are not owners; they are merely tenants of one or other of the big breweries.

The worst part is that “landlord” and “licencee” just as “tenant” and too many other terms commonly using in what’s generally know as “the licenced trade” mean other things in other circumstances.

So for instance, what you mean by “landlord” could refer to at least three very different things:

It could literally mean the old-fashioned owner of an establishment offering hospitality, whether that was a pub or a restaurant, an inn, or a hotel - except that the hotel is a relatively modern concept; if you like, a supercase of the traditional inn but either way, a much-more modern thing.

It could colloquially mean the more-modern, idiomatic use of the same term, regardless of legal niceties.

It could literally mean not the operator but the owner of the premises, in this case the brewery - but that’s purely about land tenure in general; not the hospitality industry in particular.

I suspect your “pubowners” was merely a typographical error but even Google recognises it as an error. In the context, does the difference between “pubowners” and “pub owners” seem more important?

Going back, Kate Bunting made perfect sense in general to say many pubs function as small hotels but in fact, they function as inns. The difference is that a pub serves only casual drinkers; a hotel (traditionally) serves only residents and an inn serves both. We might add a level of complexity by saying that traditionally inns did and pubs did not serve diners as well as drinkers.

Please accept that “some pubs are also tavernshotels” stretches a point too far. Strictly, no pubs are also hotels; not even if you could stretch “tavern” to include both “pub” and “inn”.

When you see a landlord as someone renting (out) the place you actually live in, please remember that your history goes back to when? Clearly, not before 1492 when Columbus sailed the ocean blue, no? Meanwhile British ideas about pubs and landlords go back hundreds of years before even the Norman Conquest of 1066… 500 years more, at least. Ie, British in particular and European in general had roughly twice as long as US American history to breed confusion.

Consider again, GEdgar’s “the owner of any building is the ‘landlord’ if he does not occupy the building himself.” For example, if the building contains a pub, and the space for the pub is leased from the owner of the building, then that owner is the "landlord”. No; who is the landlord is no more to do with pubs than any other use of the building. Both traditionally and in modern terms, the landlord owns the land and prolly the buildings on it - please, don’t let’s go there. To suggest “the owner of any building is the ‘landlord’ if he does not occupy the building himself” is simple nonsense in any industry.

tmgr quite rightly hi-lights the confusion caused by the legal and hospitality industries using the same term, in related but not identical circumstances, to mean quite different things.

I don’t think Kate Bunting should have given even so much leeway as American/British divergence…

I do think Hot Licks land/building dichotomy is unreal.

Janus Bahs Jacquet is quite right that the existence of a landlord does not necessarily entail the existence of a tenant but only that far.

A landlord is not someone who rents out a building, or part of a building. A landlord is one who owns land, and quite likely but not much relevantly, buildings on that land. Who doesn’t see the difference, please say so now.

Of course it’s true that normally becomes relevant only when there’s a rental agreement but that’s about contract, not ownership.

In the case of hotels, it can't be relevant whether the owner is a corporation or unknown entity; with a pub, one normally doesn't know who the owner is; certainly not because they’re the ones who sign you in… why would anyone “sign you in” to a pub?

"Signing in" is a legal requirement in clubs and hotels but in pubs it's not just irrelevant; it's inconceivable, in Britain as in US America as everywhere else. Just for instance, consider whether any patron in any episode of Cheers would accept being asked to "sign in."

No; when you’re just drinking there, you’re not at all ‘renting’ a space. If you were, they would not be able to evict or ban you except under the conditions of the rental contract.

To give a ridiculous example that’s to say, a publican can tell you to leave simply because he doesn’t like the colour of your shirt; a hotel can tell you to leave only if you infringe a stated regulation.

From https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=landlord Etymononline

lord (n.)

**mid-13c., laverd, loverd, from Old English hlaford "master of a household, [less releavant defintions omitted]". Old English hlaford is a contraction of earlier hlafweard, literally "one who guards the loaves," from hlaf "bread, loaf" (see loaf (n.)) + weard "keeper, guardian" (from PIE root wer- (3) "perceive, watch out for").

landlord (n.)

early 15c. (late 13c. as a surname), owner of a tenement, one who rents land or property to a tenant," from land (n.) + lord (n.).

However, the OED, in agreeing with this for the earliest meaning of "landlord", adds

but the modern word landlord, in the sense of an innkeeper, is a new formation (see quotes of 1724, below.)

The oldest meaning is (OED)

1.a. Originally, a lord or owner of land; in recorded use applied only spec. to the person who lets land to a tenant. Hence (perhaps already in 16th cent.) in widened sense (as the correlative to tenant): A person of whom another person holds any tenement, whether a piece of land, a building or part of a building.

a1000 in Earle Land Charters (1888) 376 Æt ælcum were ðe binnan ðam .xxx. hidan is gebyreð æfre se oðer fisc ðam landhlaforde.

In the late 17th century, this then extended to anyone who let out his own property to lodgers, long or short-term.

OED

2.a. In extended sense: The person in whose house one lodges or boards for payment; one's ‘host’.

1692 N. Luttrell Diary in Brief Hist. Relation State Affairs (1857) II. 411 His landlords daughter testified that [etc.].

It seems that this is the origin of landlord as it is recorded - in the "innkeeper" sense - 30 years later in the early 18th century:

2 b. The master of an inn, an innkeeper.

1724 J. Swift Let. to Shop-keepers of Ireland (new ed.) 7 Suppose you go to an Ale-House with that base Money, and the Landlord gives you a Quart for Four of these Half-Pence.

To understand this further, we have Inn which mean "accommodation"

†1. a. A dwelling-place, habitation, abode, lodging; a house (in relation to its inhabitant).(Edit: archaic or all but obsolete)

c1000 Ælfric Homilies I. 110 Þaða se steorra glad, and þa tungel-witegan gelædde, and him ðæs cildes inn gebicnode.

1657 J. Howell Londinopolis 339 Queen Mary gave this House to Nicholas Heth, Archbishop of York, and his successors for ever, to be their Inne or Lodging for their repair to London.

(Compare "The Inns of court".)

Inn 4.a. A public house kept for the lodging and entertainment of travellers, or of any who wish to use its accommodation; a hostelry or hotel; sometimes, erroneously, a tavern which does not provide lodging.

c1400 Mandeville's Trav. (1839) v. 34 Alleweyes men fynden gode innes and all that hem nedeth of Vytaylle.

1883 Law Times 27 Oct. 432/2 An inn or hotel is an establishment, the proprietor of which undertakes to provide for the entertainment of all comers, especially travellers.

The term "innkeeper" implied that the owner sold beer, wine, etc., offered food and let out rooms. It seems this title was then adopted by or given to alehouse/tavern owners even though their services were more basic.