rent-charge, with which it is frequently confounded; a rentcharge being a burthen impofed upon and iffuing out of lands, whereas an annuity is a yearly fum chargeable only upon the perfon of the grantor. Therefore, if a man by deed grant to another the sum of 201. per annum, without expreffing out of what lands it fhall iffue, no land at all fhall be charged with it; but it is a mere perfonal annuity: which is of fo little account in the law, that, if granted to an eleemofynary corporation, it is not within the ftatutes of mortmain ; and yet a man may have a real estate in it, though his fecurity is merely perfonal.

9.

X. RENTS are the laft fpecies of incorporeal hereditaments. The word rent or render, reditus, fignifies a compenfation or return, it being in the nature of an acknowlegement given for the poffeffion of fome corporeal inheritance . It is defined to be a certain profit iffuing yearly out of lands and tenements corporeal. It must be a profit; yet there is no occafion for it to be, as it ufually is, a fum of money for fpurs, capons, horfes, corn, and other matters may be rendered, and frequently are rendered by way of rent. It may alfo confift in fervices or manual operations; as, to plough fo many acres of ground, to attend the king or the lord to the wars, and the like; which fervices in the eye of the law are profits. This profit muft alfo be certain; or that which may be reduced to a certainty by either party. It muft alfo iffue yearly; though there is no occafion for it to iffue every fucceffive year; but it may be referved every fecond, third, or fourth year: yet, as it is to be produced out of the profits of lands and tenements, as a recompenfe for being permitted to hold or enjoy them, it ought to be referved yearly, because those profits do annually arife and are annually renewed. It must iffue out of the thing granted, and not be part of the land or thing itself; wherein it differs from an exception in the grant, which is always of part of the thing granted. It, muft, laftly, iffue out of lands and tenements corporeal; that is, from fome inheritance whereunto the owner or grantee of the

Co. Litt. 144.

Ibid. 2.

4 Ibid. 144.

r Co. Litt. 142.

s Ibid. 47.

Plowd. 13. 8 Rep. 71.

rent

rent may have recourfe to distrain. Therefore a rent cannot be referved out of an advowfon, a common, an office, a franchife, or the like ". But a grant of such annuity or fum may operate as a perfonal contract, and oblige the grantor to pay the money referved, or fubject him to an action of debt": though it doth not affect the inheritance, and is no legal rent in contemplation of law.

THERE are at common law * three manner of rents, rentfervice, rent-charge, and rent-feck. Rent-fervice is so called because it hath some corporal service incident to it, as at the least fealty or the feodal oath of fidelity Y. For, if a tenant holds his land by fealty, and ten fhillings rent; or by the fervice of ploughing the lord's land, and five fhillings rent; these pecuniary rents, being connected with personal services, are therefore called rent-fervice. And for thefe, in cafe they be behind, or arrere, at the day appointed, the lord may diftrein of common right, without referving any special power of distress; provided he hath in himself the reversion, or future eftate of the lands and tenements, after the lease or particular eftate of the leffee or grantee is expired. A rent-charge, is where the owner of the rent hath no future interest, or reverfion expectant in the land; as where a man by deed maketh over to others his whole estate in fee fimple, with a certain rent payable thereout, and adds to the deed a covenant or clause of distress, that if the rent be arrere, or behind, it shall be lawful to diftrein for the fame. In this cafe the land is liable to the diftrefs, not of common right, but by virtue of the clause in the deed: and therefore it is called a rent-charge because in this manner the land is charged with a distress for the payment of it. Rent-feck, reditus ficcus, or barren rent, is in effect nothing more than a rent referved by deed, but without any clause of diftrefs.

THERE are alfo other fpecies of rents, which are reducible to these three. Rents of affife are the certain established rents of the freeholders and ancient copyholders of a manor, which cannot be departed from or varied. Those of the Litt. §. 215. a Co. Lit. 143.

u Co. Litt. 144. x Litt. §. 213.

Ibid.47.

y Co. Litt. 142.

z

b 2 Inft. 19.

freeholders

freeholders are frequently called chief rents, reditus capitales; and both forts are indifferently denominated quit rents, quieti reditus; because thereby the tenant goes quit and free of all other fervices. When these payments were reserved in filver or white money, they were antiently called white-rents, or blanch-farms, reditus albi; in contradistinction to rents referved in work, grain, or bafer money, which were called reditus nigri or black mail. Rack-rent is only a rent of the full value of the tenement or near it. (b) A fee-farm rent is a rent-charge iffuing out of an eftate in fce; of at least one fourth of the value of the lands, at the time of it's refervation: for a grant of lands, reserving so confiderable a rent, is indeed only letting lands to farm in fee fimple instead of the ufual methods for life or years.

THESE are the general divisions of rent; but the difference between them (in respect to the remedy for recovering them) is now totally abolished; and all perfons may have the like remedy by distress for rents-feck, rents of affife, and chiefrents, as in case of rents reserved upon leafe f.

RENT is regularly due and payable upon the land from whence it iffues, if no particular place is mentioned in the reservation : but, in cafe of the king, the payment must be either to his officers at the exchequer, or to his receiver in the country. And, ftrictly, the rent is demandable and payable before the time of fun-set of the day whereon it is referved; though perhaps not absolutely due till midnight *.

WITH regard to the original of rents, fomething will be faid in the next chapter; and, as to diftreffes and other remedies for their recovery, the doctrine relating thereto, and the feveral proceedings thereon, thefe belong properly to the third part of our commentaries, which will treat of civil injuries, and the means whereby they are redreffed.

(b) See Douglas, Rep. 604. note 1. as to the definition of a fee-farm rent.

CHAPTER THE FOURT H.

OF THE FEODAL SYSTEM.

T is impoffible to understand, with any degree of accuracy, either the civil conftitution of this kingdom, or the laws which regulate it's landed property, without fome gene-. ral acquaintance with the nature and doctrine of feuds, or the feodal law a fyftem fo univerfally received throughout Europe upwards of twelve centuries ago, that fir Henry Spelman does not fcruple to call it the law of nations in our western world. This chapter will be therefore dedicated to this inquiry. And though, in the courfe of our obfervations in this and many other parts of the prefent book, we may have occafion to fearch pretty highly into the antiquities of our English jurifprudence, yet furely no induftrious ftudent will imagine his time mifemployed, when he is led to confider that the obiolete doctrines of our laws are frequently the foundation, upon which what remains is erected; and that it is impracticable to comprehend many rules of the modern. law, in a scholarlike scientifical manner, without having recourfe to the antient. Nor will these researches be altogether void of rational entertainment as well as ufe: as in viewing the majeflic ruins of Rome or Athens, of Balbec or Palmyra, it adminifters both pleafure and inftruction to compare them with the draughts of the fame edifices, in their priftine proportion and fplendor.

of parliaments, 57.

THE

THE Conftitution of feuds had its original from the military policy of the northern or Celtic nations, the Goths, the Huns, the Franks, the Vandals, and the Lombards, who all migrating from the fame officina gentium, as Crag very justly entitles it, poured themselves in vaft quantities into all the regions of Europe, at the declenfion of the Roman empire. It was brought by them from their own countries, and continued in their respective colonies as the most likely means to fecure their new acquifitions: and, to that end, large districts or parcels of land were allotted by the conquering general to the superior officers of the army, and by them dealt out again in smaller parcels or allotments to the inferior officers and most deferving foldiers. These allotments were called feoda, feuds, fiefs, or fecs; which laft appellation in the northern languages fignifies a conditional ftipend or reward. Rewards or ftipends they evidently were: and the condition annexed to them was, that the poffeffor should do service faithfully, both at home and in the wars, to him by whom they were given; for which purpose he took the juramentum fidelitatis, or oath of fealty * : and in cafe of the breach of this condition and oath, by not performing the ftipulated fervice, or by deferting the lord in battle, the lands were again to revert to him who granted them h

ALLOTMENTS, thus acquired, naturally engaged fuch as accepted them to defend them: and, as they all fprang from

b See Spelman of feuds, and Wright Inft. part. 2.) Now the tranfpofition of

of tenures, per tat.

c De jure feod. 19, 20. d Wright, 7.

e Spelm. Gl. 216.

f Pontoppidan in his hiftory of Norway, (page 290) obferves, that in the northern languages obh fignifies proprietas and all totum. Hence he derives the otha! right in those countries; and thence too perhaps is derived the udal right in Finland, &c. (See Mac Doual

thefe northern fyllables, alloph, will give us the true etymology of the allodium, or abfolute property of the feudifts: as, by a fimilar combination of the latter fyllable with the word fre (which fignifies, we have feen, a conditional reward or ftipend) fecodh or feodum will denote ftipendiary property. g See this oath explained at large in Feud. 1. 2. 1.7.

h Feud. 1. 2. t. 24.

the