by law. This universality of tenure is, perhaps, peculiar to England. In other kingdoms those parts of the lands which were permitted to remain in the hands of the natives, and a considerable part of those which the conquerors parcelled out among themselves, were not originally subject to tenure. In the earliest age, however, of the feudal law, some advantages attended tenure, and frequently occasioned the conversion of allodial into feudal property. But in the anarchy which followed the removal of the Carlovingian dynasty, there was an end of all political government; so that almost all persons found it advantageous to enter into the feud. To effect this they delivered up their lands, sometimes to the sovereign, sometimes to some powerful lord, and sometimes to the church, on condition to receive it back in feudality. Lands, thus delivered and returned, received the appellation of feuda data et oblata. Some portion of lands, however, still remained free. Of this the proportion differs in the countries on the continent. In some, the courts presume it to be feudal, till it is proved to be allodial. In others the presumption is in favor of its allodiality. . But with us, in the eye of the law, tenure is universal—that is, the dominium directum of all the lands in the kingdom is in the Crown; the dominium utile of them is in the tenant.— Butler's note, 77, V. I.

2 BL. COM., 104-105. The true meaning of the word fee (feodum) is the same with that of feud or fief, and in its original sense it is taken in contradistinction to allodium, which latter the writers on this subject define to be every man's own land, which he possesseth merely in his own right, without owing any rent or service to any superior. This is property in its highest degree; and the owner thereof hath absolutum et directum dominium, and therefore is said to be seized thereof absolutely in dominico suo, in his own demesne. But feodum, or fee, is that which is held of some superior on condition of rendering him service, in which superior the ultimate prop

erty of the land resides. And therefore Sir Henry Spelman1 defines a feud or fee to be the right which the vassal or tenant hath in lands, to use the same, and take the profits thereof to him and his heirs, rendering to the lord his due. services, the mere allodial property of the soil always remaining in the lord. This allodial property no subject in England has, it being a received and now undeniable principle in the law that all the lands in England are holden mediately or immediately of the king. The king therefore only hath absolutum et directum dominium; but all subjects' lands are in the nature of feodum or fee, whether derived to them by descent from their ancestors or purchased for a valuable consideration; for they cannot come to any man by either of those ways, unless accompanied with those feudal clogs which were laid upon the first feudatory when it was originally granted. A subject therefore hath only the usufruct, and not the absolute property of the soil; or, as Sir Edward Coke expresses it," he hath dominium utile, but not dominium directum. And hence it is that in the most solemn acts of law we express the strongest and highest estate that any subject can have by these words: "He is seized thereof in his demesne, as of fee." It is a man's demesne, dominicum, or property, since it belongs to him and his heirs forever; yet this dominicum, property, or demesne, is strictly not absolute or allodial, but qualified or feodal: it is his demesne, as of fee-that is, it is not purely and simply his own, since it is held of a superior lord, in whom the ultimate property resides.

WILLIAMS, PERS. PROP., 7-8. The first lesson to be learned on the nature of real property is this: that of such property there can be no such thing as an absolute ownership; the utmost that can be held or enjoyed in real property is an estate. There may be an estate for life, or an estate tail, or an estate in fee-simple; but, according to the law of England, there cannot exist over landed property any absolute and

independent dominion. All the land in the kingdom is the subject of tenure; and if the estate is not holden of any subject, at any rate it must be held of the Crown. With regard to personal property, however, the primary rule is precisely the reverse. Such property is essentially the subject of absolute ownership, and cannot be held for any estate. It is true that the phrase personal estate is frequently used as synonymous with personal property; but this general use of the term estate should not mislead the student into the supposition that there can be any such thing as an estate in personalty properly so called. The rule that no estate can subsist in personal property would seem to have originated in the nature of such property in early times. Goods and chattels of a personal kind, in other words, movable articles, then formed, as we have seen, the whole of a man's personal estate. And such articles, it is evident, may be the subjects of absolute ownership, and have not those enduring qualities which would render them fit to be holden by any kind of feudal tenure. As personal property increased in value and variety, many kinds of property of a more permanent nature became, as we have seen, comprised within the class of personal, such as leases for years, of whatever length, and Consolidated Bank Annuities. But the rule that there can be no estate in chattels, the reason of which was properly applicable only to movable goods, still continues to be applied generally to all sorts of personal property, both corporeal and incorporeal.

2 POLL. & MAIT., HIST. ENG. LAW, 2-6. One of the main outlines of our medieval law is that which divides material things into two classes. Legal theory speaks of the distinction as being that between "movables" and "immovables"; the ordinary language of the courts seldom uses such abstract terms, but is content with contrasting "lands and tenements" with "goods and chattels." We have every reason to believe that in very remote times our law saw differences between these two classes of things;

but the gulf between them has been widened and deepened both by feudalism and by the evolution of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction. We shall be better able to explore this gulf when, having spoken of lands, we turn to speak of chattels; but even at the outset we shall do well to observe, that if in the thirteenth century the chasm is already as wide as it will ever be, its depth has yet to be increased by the operation of legal theory. The facts to which the lawyers of a later day will point when they use the word "hereditaments" and when they contrast "real" with "personal property are already in existence, though some of them are new; but these terms are not yet in use. Still more important is it to observe that Glanvill and Bracton-at the suggestion, it may be, of foreign jurisprudence-can pass from movables to immovables and then back to movables with an ease which their successors may envy. Bracton discourses at length about the ownership of things (rerum), and though now and again he has to distinguish between res mobiles and res immobiles, and though when he speaks of a res without any qualifying adjective, he is thinking chiefly of land, still he finds a great deal to say about things and the ownership of things which is to hold good whatever be the nature of the things in question. The tenant in fee who holds land in demesne, is, like the owner of a chattel, dominus rei; he is proprietarius; he has dominium et proprietatem rei. That the law of England knows no ownership of land, or will concede such ownership only to the king, is a dogma that has never entered the head of Glanvill or of Bracton.

But we ought to hesitate long before we condemn Bracton and those founders of the common law whose spokesman he was, for calling the tenant in demesne an owner and proprietor of an immovable thing. Only three courses were open to them: (1) To deny that any land in England is owned; (2) to ascribe the ownership of the whole country to the king; (3) to hold that an owner is none the less an owner because he and his land owe services to the king or to

some other lord. We can hardly doubt that they were right in choosing the third path; the second plunges into obvious falsehood; the first leads to a barren paradox. . . . As a matter of fact, the services that the tenant in fee owed for his land were seldom very onerous; often they were nominal; often, as in the case of military service, scutage and suit of court, they fell within what we should regard as the limits of public law. Again, it could hardly be said that the tenant's rights were conditioned by the performance of these services, for the lord, unless he kept up an efficient court of his own, could not recover possession of the land though the services were in arrear. The tenant, again, might use or abuse or waste the land as pleased him best. If the lord entered on the land, unless it were to distrain-and distress was a risky process he was trespassing on another man's soil; if he ejected the tenant "without a judgment," he was guilty of a disseisin. As against all third persons it was the tenant in desmesne who represented the land; if a stranger trespassed on it or filched part of it away, he wronged the tenant, not the lord. And then the king's court had been securing to the tenant a wide liberty of alienation-for an owner must be able to alienate what he owns. The feudal casualties might indeed press heavily upon the tenant, but they need not be regarded as restrictions on ownership. An infant land-owner must be in ward to some one, and to some one who as a matter of course will be entitled to make a profit of the wardship; but if a boy's ownership of his land would not be impaired by his being in ward to an uncle, why should it be impaired by his being in ward to his lord? If the tenant commits felony, his lands will escheat to his lord; but his chattels also will be forfeited, and it may well be that this same lord (since he enjoys the franchise known as catalla felonum) will take them. It is very possible that Bracton saw the Roman land-owner of the classical age holding his land" of " the emperor by homage and service; it was common knowledge that the modern Roman emperor was surrounded by feudatories; but at any rate there was no