Of the Estate which may be had in a Rent, and its Incidents. Ir has been stated that when the great lords enfran- Origin of rents. chised their villeins, they still employed them in the cultivation of their estates, which they granted to them Rents 9. either from year to year, or for a certain number of years; reserving to themselves an annual return from the tenant of corn, or other provisions. Hence the lands thus granted were called farms, from the Saxon word feorm, which signifies provisions. 2. This compensation or return for the use of the land thus let acquired the name of redditus, rent; and is defined by Lord Ch. B. Gilbert to be an annual return made by the tenant, either in labour, money, or provisions, in retribution for the land that passes; from -which it follows, that though rent must be a profit, yet there is no occasion that it should consist of money; for capons, spurs, horses, and other things of that nature, may be reserved by way of rent; and it may also con1 Inst. 142. a. sist of services or manual labour, as to plough a certain number of acres of land. Idem. Rent-service, Tit. 2. c. 1. 3. The profit reserved as rent must be certain, or that which may be reduced to a certainty, by either party. It must also be payable yearly, though it need not be reserved in every successive year but will be good if reserved in every second or third year. It must also issue out of the thing granted, and not be a part of the thing itself; for a person cannot reserve a part of the annual profits themselves, as the vesture or herbage of land. 4. There are three kinds of rent; namely, rent-service, rent-charge, and rent-seck. Where a tenant holds his land by fealty and certain rent, it is a rent service; and this was the only kind of rent originally known to the common law. A right of distress was inseparably incident to it, as long as it was payable to the lord who was entitled to the fealty of the tenant. And it was called a rent service, because it was given as a compensation for the services to which the land was originally liable. 5. We have seen that in consequence of the statute Quia Emptores, if a person makes a feoffment in fee, or gift in tail, with a limitation over in fee, the feoffee or donee will hold of the superior lord, by the same services which the feoffor was bound to perform to him: from which it follows that upon a conveyance of this kind, no rent-service can be reserved to the feoffor or donor, because he has no reversion left in him; and as the feoffee or donee does not hold of him, he is not bound to do him fealty. But, if upon a conveyance in tail or for life, the donor keeps the reversion, and reserves to himself a rent, it will be a rent-service, because fealty and a power of distress are incident to such reversion. 6. Where a rent was granted out of lands by deed, Rent-charge, 1 the grantee had not power to distrain for it, because Inst. 143. b. there was no fealty annexed to such a grant. To remedy this inconvenience, an express power of distress was inserted in the grant, in consequence of which it was called a rent-charge, because the lands were charged with a distress, for the recovery of the rent. 7. Rent-charges are of great antiquity, and were probably first granted for the purpose of providing for younger children. They were however considered as contrary to the policy of the common law, for the tenant was thereby less able to perform the military services to which he was bound by his tenure; and the grantee of the rent-service was under no feudal obligations of service; therefore, a rent-charge was said to be against common right. 8. A rent-charge may now be created either by grant, Tit. 11. c. 3. or by means of the statute of Uses. For it is enacted by that statute, s. 4 & 5., that where divers persons stood and were seised of and in any lands, &c. in fee simple or otherwise, to the use and intent that some other person or persons should have an annual rent out of the same, in every such case the same persons, their heirs and assigns, that had such use and interest to have any such annual rents, should be adjudged to be in possession and seisin of the same rent, of and in such like estate as they had in the use of the said rent. 9. Lord Bacon, in his reading on this statute, observes that in consequence of the words "were seised" a doubt had arisen whether the statute was not confined to rents in use at the time: but that this was explained in the following clause ;-" as if a sufficient Revetts v. God grant or other lawful conveyance had been made and executed to them by such as were or should be seised to the use or intent of any such rent, to be had made or paid according to the very trust and intent thereof." son. Tit. 32. c. 10. Lit. § 252. Gilb. Rent. 19. 1 Inst. 169 a. Rent-seck. Other kinds of rents. 2 Inst 19. Fee farm rents. 1 Inst. 143 b. n. 5. 2 Inst. 44. Doug. R. 627.n. 10. A rent granted for equality of partition between two coparceners is called a rent-charge, of common right, because the coparcener has given a valuable consideration for it. A rent granted in lieu of lands upon an exchange is of the same nature; as also a rent granted to a widow, out of lands of which she is dowable, in lieu of dower. 11. A rent-seck, or barren rent, is nothing more than a rent for the recovery of which no power of distress is given, either by the rules of the common law, or the agreement of the parties. 12. Although every species of rent is comprised in the preceding divisions, yet there are some rents which are known by particular names. Thus the certain established rents of the freeholders and antient copyholders of manors are called rents of assise. Those of the freeholders are also frequently called chief rents, redditus capitales; and both sorts are indifferently denominated quit rents, quieti redditus, because thereby the tenant goes quit and free of all other services. 13. A fee farm rent is a perpetual rent reserved on a conveyance of lands in fee simple; and Lord Coke says, if a rent be to the whole value of the land, or to the fourth part of its value, it is called a fee farm. But Mr. Hargrave has observed on this passage, that the true meaning of a fee farm is a perpetual farm or rent, the name being founded on the perpetuity of the rent or service, not on the quantum: that the sometimes confining the term fee farm to rents of a certain value probably arose, partly from the statute of Gloucester, which gives the cessavit, only where the rent amounts to one-fourth of the value of the land; and partly from its being most usual, on grants in fee farm, not to reserve less than a third or fourth of such value. Wright, Doug. 14. After the statute Quia Emptores, granting in fee Bradbury v. farm, except by the King, became impracticable; be- R. 624. cause the grantor parting with the fee, is by the operation of that statute without any reversion; and without a reversion there cannot be a rent service. A perpetual rent may however be reserved on a conveyance of lands in fee simple; and if a power of distress and entry be given to the grantor, his heirs and assigns, the rent will be good as a rent-charge, but not as a fee farm rent. seisin of a rent. Tit. 5. c. 1. 15. With respect to the mode of acquiring seisin What gives a of a rent, in the case of a rent service the person entitled cannot acquire a seisin in deed before the rent becomes due; for nothing but the actual receipt of it will have that effect. As to a rent-charge, the only mode of acquiring a seisin in deed of it, when created by grant, is by the actual receipt of the whole, or of some part of it; and formerly it was usual, where a freehold estate in a rent charge was created, to pay the grantee a penny in the name of seisin of the rent. But where a rent is created by means of a conveyance to uses, the grantee immediately acquires a seisin, by the words of the statute. Out of what a rent may be re served. 1 Inst. 47 a. 142 a. 16. A rent must in general issue out of lands or tenements of a corporeal nature, whereto the grantee may have recourse to distrain. It could not therefore be formerly reserved out of an advowson in gross, tithes, or other incorporeal hereditaments; because, says Lord Ch. B. Gilbert, every incorporeal right, till by age it Rent 20, 22. was formed into a prescription, did originally rise by grant from the Crown; and such grants seem to have been made for particular purposes; as the grant of a |