Land was a productive asset, made so via farming by the people who lived on the land and did the work. Someone else will be able to point out when serfs stopped being a thing.

These comments cover it pretty much, but also relevant was that it was quite rare for women to own land as it would often transfer to the family (ie. husband) on marriage (essentially, heiresses), or to male heirs on death (or only to only-child heiresses if they married).

Widowhood and un-eligable female only-children were one of the main ways women were able to be landowners way back when.

This is regarding England at some point in history - I'm unsure both when in history this stopped, and how similar this was to any other places in Europe or the rest of the world.

Simplest thing was to let someone work the land in exchange for a cut of the crops: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenant_farmer

Sharecropping has also been pointed out as the model for things happening on the web: https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/07/12/WebsThePl... (redux: https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/07/14/ShareCrop... )

Besides growing crops, there were also mining rights, timber rights, grazing rights, fishing rights, water-powered mills, toll roads, sea ports/river ports... there are any number of income sources that typically have owning the land as a prerequisite.

they can rent it and yes generally they owned nearby peasants too, then they can sell the yield to the peasants.