In post-medieval legal doctrine the surrender and the release, otherwise called quitclaim, were sharply distinguished. A surrender occurred when a person possessed of realty gave it up to someone with rights in it; a release occurred when a person with rights over realty granted them to the person in actual possession. The standard illustration was in connection with a tenure for life or for years. A surrender would occur if the tenant gave up the land to the lessor, or to the lessor's assignee; this would have the effect of extinguishing the tenancy and merging the land back into the fee. A release would occur if the lessor, during the currency of the lease, released his reversion to the tenant and his heirs; this would have the effect of extinguishing the tenancy and enlarging the tenant's estate into a fee. When considering medieval conveyancing practice, it is not possible to isolate surrenders from releases as easily as later legal theorists could do, partly because in many transactions the two were combined, and partly because it was not the case that each had its own special vocabulary. With one exception, the verb sursumreddere which is found only in surrenders, all the words which can be found in the operative clauses of surrenders can be found also in releases. It is for these reasons that the two are being discussed in a single chapter.

Releases had not always been limited, and surrenders were never limited, to transactions between lord and tenant.