A gift of land that would not be useful or even reachable was actually not necessarily an insult as it actually raises the pcs to the status of landowners which would allow them to appear in court and discuss political issues with the noble's. For hundreds of years the English and French would actually grant allies lands in the other country that they would theoretically hold of either country were taken by the reigning monarch. This would lead to all sorts of complications years later when wars did break out, noble's would switch sides and then two families could end up legally owning the same plot of land