in fee simple instead of the usual methods for life

or years.

Rent is regularly due and payable upon the land from whence it issues, if no particular place is mentioned in the reservation: but, in case of the king, the payment must be either to his officers at the exchequer, or to his receiver in the country. And, strictly, the rent is demandable and payable before the time of sun-set of the day whereon it is reserved: though perhaps not absolutely due till midnight.

CHAPTER IV.

OF THE FEUDAL SYSTEM.

Ir is impossible to understand, with any degree of accuracy, either the civil constitution of this kingdom, or the laws which regulate its landed property, without some general acquaintance with the nature and doctrine of feuds, or the feudal law: a system so universally received throughout Europe, upwards of twelve centuries ago, that sir Henry Spelman does not scruple to call it the law of nations in our western world.

But this feudal polity, which was thus by degrees established over all the continent of Europe, seems not to have been received in this part of our island, at least not universally and as a part of the national constitution, till the reign of William the Norman. Not but that it is reasonable to believe, from abun

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dant traces in our history and laws, that even in the times of the Saxons, who were a swarm from what sir William Temple calls the same northern hive, something similar to this was in use: yet not so extensively, nor attended with all the rigour that was afterwards imported by the Normans. For the Saxons were firmly settled in this island, at least as early as the year 600: and it was not till two centuries after, that feuds arrived to their full vigour and maturity, even on the continent of Europe.

This introduction, however, of the feudal tenures into England, by king William, does not seem to have been effected immediately after the conquest, nor by the mere arbitrary will and power of the conqueror; but to have been gradually established by the Norman barons, and others, in such forfeited lands as they received from the gift of the conqueror, and afterwards universally consented to by the great council of the nation long after his title was established.

And, though the time of this great revolution in our landed property cannot be ascertained with exactness, yet there are some circumstances that may lead us to a probable conjecture concerning it. For we learn from the Saxon chronicle, that in the nineteenth year of king William's reign an invasion was apprehended from Denmark; and the military constitution of the Saxons being then laid aside, and no other introduced in its stead, the kingdom was wholly defenceless: which occasioned the king to bring over a large army of Normans and

Britons, who were quartered upon every landholder, and greatly oppressed the people. This apparent weakness, together with the grievances occasioned by a foreign force, might co-operate with the king's remonstrances, and the better incline the nobility to listen to his proposals for putting them in a posture of defence. For, as soon as the danger was over, the king held a great council to inquire into the state of the nation; the immediate consequence of which was the compiling of the great survey called domesday-book, which was finished in the next year and in the latter end of that very year the king was attended by all his nobility at Sarum; where all the principal landholders submitted their lands to the yoke of military tenure, became the king's vassals, and did homage and fealty to his person.

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This new polity, therefore, seems not to have been imposed by the conqueror, but nationally and freely adopted by the general assembly of the whole realm, in the same manner as other nations of Europe had before adopted it, upon the same principle of self-security.

In consequence of this change, it became a fundamental maxim and necessary principle (though in reality a mere fiction) of our English tenures, "that the king is the universal lord and original proprietor of all the lands in his kingdom; and that no man doth or can 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, pro

per feuds, other nations who adopted this system were obliged to act upon the same supposition, as a substruction and foundation of their new polity, though the fact was indeed far otherwise. And indeed 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 thereupon took a handle to introduce not only the rigorous doctrines which prevailed in the duchy of Normandy, but also such fruits and dependencies, such hardships and services, as were never known to other nations; as if the English had in fact as well as theory, owed every thing they had to the bounty of their sovereign lord.

Our ancestors, therefore, who were by no means beneficiaries, but had barely consented to this fiction of tenure from the crown, as the basis of a military discipline, with reason looked upon these deductions as grievous impositions, and arbitrary conclusions from principles that, as to them, had no foundation in truth.

Having given this short history of their rise and progress, we will next consider the nature, doctrine, and principal laws of feuds; wherein we shall evidently trace the groundwork of many parts of our public polity, and also the original of such of our own tenures, as were either abolished in the last century, or still remain in force.

The grand and fundamental maxim of all feudal tenure is this; that all lands were originally granted out by the sovereign, and are therefore holden, either mediately or immediately, of the crown. The grantor was called the proprietor, or lord; being he who retained the dominion or ultimate property of the feud or fee: and the grantee, who had only the use and possession, according to the terms of the grant, was stiled the feudatory or vassal, which was only another name for the tenant or holder of the lands; though, on account of the prejudices we have justly conceived against the doctrines that were afterwards grafted on this system, we now use the word vassal opprobriously, as synonymous to slave or bondman. The manner of the grant was by words of gratuitous and pure donation, dedi et concessi; which are still the operative words in our modern infeodations or deeds of feoffment. This was perfected by the ceremony of corporal investiture, or open and notorious delivery of possession in the presence of the other vassals, which perpetuated among them the era of the new acquisition, at a time when the art of writing was very little known: and therefore the evidence of property was reposed in the memory of the neigh