Sentence:  As defined by English judges, common law itself offered tenants some minimal protections that eighteenth-century New York rentiers had often ignored. Thus the legal custom of <WSD>landed society</WSD> had exempted from seizure beasts of plow, certain essential household goods, and especially the implements of trade unless all other remedies had proved insufficient. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  A British socio-economic class of landowners, socially just below the aristocracy or peerage, who could live entirely from rental income.