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original proprietor of all the lands in his kingdom; and that no man can or doth possess any part of it, but what has mediately or immediately been derived as a gift from him, to be held upon feudal services." For, this being the real case in pure, original, proper feuds, our nation, which adopted this system, was obliged to act upon the same supposition, as a substructure and foundation of a new polity. By thus consenting to the introduction of feudal tenures, our English ancestors probably meant no more than to put the kingdom in a state of defence by establishing a military system, and to oblige themselves, in respect of their lands, to maintain the King's title and territories, with equal vigour and fealty, as if they had received their lands from his bounty upon these express conditions, as pure, proper, beneficiary feudatories. But whatever their meaning was, the Norman interpreters, skilled in all the niceties of the feudal constitutions, and well understanding the import and extent of the feudal terms, gave a very different construction to this proceeding, and subsequently introduced, besides fealty and homage, Aids, Reliefs, Fines in alienation, Escheats, and Forfeitures, and such hardships and · services, as if the English had, in fact as well as theory, derived everything they possessed from the bounty of their sovereign lord.

Our ancestors, therefore, who had consented to this fiction of tenure from the Crown as the basis of a military discipline, looked with reason upon the obligations thus imposed as grievous impositions and arbitrary conclusions from principles that to them had no foundation in truth. However, William and his son Rufus kept up all the rigours of the feudal doctrines with a high hand; but their successor, Henry I., when he set up his pretensions to the Crown, found it expedient to promise a restitution of the laws of King Edward the Confessor, or ancient Saxon system; and accordingly, in the first year of his reign he granted a charter, whereby he gave up the greater grievances, but still reserved the fiction of feudal tenure for the same military purposes which induced his father to introduce it. But this charter was gradually broken through, and the former grievances were revived and aggravated by himself and succeeding princes, till in the reign of King John they became so intolerable, that they occasioned his barons, or principal feuda

tories, to rise up in arms against him, which at length produced the famous Magna Charta, at Runnymede, which, with some alterations, was confirmed by his son Henry III. Further concessions were afterwards made, and ultimately a restoration was brought about of the ancient constitution, of which our ancestors had been defrauded by the art and finesse of the Norman lawyers, rather than deprived by the force of the Norman arms.

CHAPTER IV.

ANCIENT AND MODERN ENGLISH TENURES.

In this chapter we shall take a short view, first, of the Ancient Tenures as they stood in force till the middle of the last century, by which we shall perceive that all the peculiarities and hardships that attended these ancient tenures were the fruits of, and deduced from, the feudal policy; and secondly, of the Modern English Tenures which succeeded them.

Explain, first, the Ancient English Tenures, and state how and by whom they were abolished.

Almost all the real property of the kingdom is, by the policy of our laws, supposed to be granted by, dependent upon, and holden of some superior lord, in consideration of certain services to be rendered to the lord by the tenant or possessor of the property. The thing holden is therefore styled a tenement, the possessors thereof tenants, and the manner of their possession a tenure. The king was considered the lord paramount, and such tenants as held under him were called his tenants in capite, or in chief; and when those tenants granted out portions of their land to inferior persons, they became also lords with respect to those inferior persons, and being still tenants of the king, were called mesne, or middle lords.

Amongst our ancestors there were four principal species of lay tenures,-tenant by knight-service, tenant by grand serjeanty, tenant by cornage, and tenant by escuage, the grand criteria of which were the natures of the several services or renders that were due to the lords from their tenants. The services in respect of their QUALITY were either free or base services, and their QUANTITY

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and the time of EXACTING them were either certain or uncertain. Free services were such as were not unbecoming the character of a soldier or a freeman to perform, as to serve under his lord in the wars, to pay a sum of money, and the like. Base services were such as were fit only for peasants, or persons of a servile rank; as to plough the lord's land, to make his hedges, to carry out his dung, or other mean employments. The certain services, whether free or base, were such as to pay a stated annual rent, or to plough such a field for three days. The uncertain depended upon unknown contingencies; as to do military service in person, or pay an assessment in lieu of it, when called upon; or to wind a horn whenever the Scots invaded the realm, which were free services; or, to do whatever the lord should command, which was a base or villein service.

The tenure by knight-service was the most universal, and it drew after it these seven exactions, AIDS, RELIEF, PRIMER SEISIN, WARDSHIP, MARRIAGE, FINES FOR ALIENATION, and ESCHEAT.

Aids were originally mere benevolences granted by the tenant to his lord in times of difficulty and distress, but afterwards made compulsory, to ransom the lord's person if taken prisoner; to make the lord's eldest son a knight; or to marry the lord's eldest daughter by giving her a suitable portion.

-Reliefs were fines payable to the lord on taking up the estate at the death of the last tenant.- -Primer seisin, the right of the king on the death of a tenant in capite seized of a knight's fee to take certain profits. -Wardship, the right of the lord to have the custody or wardship of the heir till the age of twenty-one in males and sixteen in females.- -Livery of ousterlemain, that is, the delivery of lands out of the guardian's hands, when a fine of half a year's profits was inflicted. -Marriage, the right of the lord to dispose of his infant wards in marriage, which if the infants refused they forfeited the value of the marriage, the amount of which was assessed by a jury; and if the infants married without the guardian's consent, they forfeited double the value; duplicem valorem maritagii.—Fines, sums due to the lord on alienation by the tenant.- Escheats, the reversion of the fee to the lord on the extinction or corruption of the blood of the tenant.

MODERN ENGLISH TENURES.

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The families of our nobility and gentry groaned under the burthens of these military tenures, which were introduced and laid upon them by the subtlety and finesse of the Norman lawyers. Many heirs on the death of their ancestors, if of full age, were plundered of the first emoluments arising from their inheritances by way of relief and primer seisin; and if under age, of the whole of their inheritances during infancy. These with other exactions forced many to sell their patronages, but they were not allowed even that privilege without paying an exorbitant sum for a licence of alienation.

Remonstrances were made, and palliatives were from time to time applied by successive Acts of Parliament, which assuaged some temporary grievances, till at length the military tenures, with all their heavy appendages, were destroyed at one blow by stat. 12 Car. II., c. 24, which enacted that the court of wards and liveries, and all wardships, liveries, primer seisins, and ousterlemains, values, and forfeitures of marriage, by reason of any tenure of the king or others, should be totally abolished.

Explain the Modern English Tenures, and the tenure of "pure villenage,' from which sprang our present Copyhold" Tenures.

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Although the oppressive or military part of the feudal constitution was abolished, yet the tenures of socage and frankalmoign, the honorary services of grand serjeanty, and the tenures by court roll were reserved, and all others were reduced to one general species of tenure then subsisting, called free and common socage, which signified a free or privileged tenure, but better known by its modern name or equivalent, freehold, by which the bulk of real property is holden at the present day.

Socage tenures (tenures by any certain determinate service) seem to have been relics of Saxon liberty, retained by such persons as had neither forfeited them to the king, nor been obliged to exchange their tenure for the more honourable, as it was called, but more burthensome tenure of knight-service. This is peculiarly remarkable in the tenure which prevails in Kent, called gavelkind, which is acknowledged to be a species of socage tenure, the preservation of which from the innovations

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