such quantity as he shall please, of his lands; at the same time specifying and ascertaining the same: on which the wife, after her husband's death, may enter without further ceremony. 4. Dower ex assensu patris; which is only a species of dower ad ostium ecclesiae, made when the husband's father is alive, and the son by his consent, expressly given, endows his wife with parcel of his father's lands. In either of these cases, they must (to prevent frauds) be made in facie ecclesiae et ad ostium ecclesiae.

Endowment by the Common Law.

I proceed to consider the method of endowment, or assigning dower by the common law, which is now the only usual species. It was provided, first by the charter of Henry I., and afterwards by Magna Charta, that the widow shall pay nothing for her marriage, nor shall be distrained to marry afresh, if she chooses to live without a husband, but shall not, however, marry against the consent of the lord; and further that nothing shall be taken for assignment of the widow's dower, but that she shall remain in her husband's capital mansion-house for forty days after his death, during which time her dower shall be assigned. These forty days are called the widow's quarantine, a term made use of in law to signify the number of forty days, whether applied to this occasion or any other. The particular lands to be held in dower must be assigned by the heir of the husband or his guardian, not only for the sake of notoriety, but also to entitle the lord of the fee to demand his services of the heir, in respect of the lands so holden. For the heir by this entry becomes tenant thereof to the lord, and the widow is immediate tenant to the heir by a kind of subinfeudation, or under-tenancy, completed by this investiture or assignment, which tenure may still be created, notwithstanding the statute of quia emptores, because the heir parts not with the feesimple, but only with an estate for life. If the heir or his guardian do not assign her dower within the term of quarantine, or do assign it unfairly, she has her remedy at law, and the sheriff is appointed to assign it. Or if the heir (being under age) or his guardian assign more than she ought to have, it may be afterwards remedied by a writ of admeasurement of dower. If the thing of which she is endowed be divisible, her dower must be set out by metes and bounds; but if it be indivisible, she must be endowed specially, as of the third presentation to a church, the third toll-dish of a mill, the third part of the profits of an office, the third sheaf of tithe, and the like.

How Dower May be Barred.

4. How dower may be barred or prevented. A widow may be barred of her dower not only by elopement, divorce, being an alien,

the treason of her husband, and other disabilities before mentioned, but also by detaining the title-deeds or evidences of the estate from the heir, until she restores them; and, by the statute of Gloucester, if a dowager alienes the land assigned for her dower, she forfeits it ipso facto, and the heir may recover it by action. A woman also may be barred of her dower, by levying a fine, or suffering a recovery of the lands, during her coverture. But the most usual method of barring dowers is by jointures, as regulated by the statute 27 Hen. VIII. c. 10.

Jointure.

A jointure, which, strictly speaking, signifies a joint estate, limited to both husband and wife, but in common acceptation extends also to a sole estate, limited to the wife only, is thus defined by Sir Edward Coke: "a competent livelihood of freehold for the wife, of lands and tenements, to take effect, in profit or possession, presently after the death of the husband, for the life of the wife at least." But then these four requisites must be punctually observed: 1. The jointure must take effect immediately on the death of the husband. 2. It must be for her own life at least, and not pur auter vie, or for any term of years, or other smaller estate. 3. It must be made to herself, and no other in trust for her. 4. It inust be made, and so in the deed particularly expressed to be, in satisfaction of her whole dower, and not of any particular part of it. If the jointure be made to her after marriage, she has her election after her husband's death, as in dower ad ostium ecclesiae, and may either accept it or refuse it and betake herself to her dower at common law; for she was not capable of consenting to it during coverture. And if, by any fraud or accident, a jointure made before marriage proves to be on a bad title, and the jointress is evicted, or turned out of possession, she shall then, (by the provisions of the same statute) have her dower pro tanto at the common law.

A widow may enter at once, without any formal process, on her jointure land as she also might have done on dower ad ostium ecclesiae, which a jointure in many points resembles. And the resemblance was still greater while that species of dower continued in its primitive state; whereas no small trouble, and a very tedious method of proceeding, is necessary to compel a legal assignment of dower. And what is more, though dower be forfeited by the treason of the husband, yet lands settled in jointure remain unimpeached to the widow.

Chapter IX.

OF ESTATES LESS THAN FREEHOLD.

139-152.

Of estates that are less than freehold, there are three sorts: 1. Estates for years; 2. Estates at will; 3. Estates by sufferance. Estate for Years.

1. An estate for years is a contract for the possession of lands or tenements for some determinate period; and it takes place where a man letteth them to another for the term of a certain number of years, agreed upon between the lessor and the lessee, and the lessee enters thereon. If the lease be but for half a year, or a quarter, or any less time, this lessee is respected as a tenant for years, and is styled so in some legal proceedings; a year being the shortest term which the law in this case takes notice of. And this may not improperly lead us into a short digression concerning the division and calculation of time by the English law.

The space of a year is a determinate and well-known period, consisting commonly of 365 days; for though in bissextile, or leapyears, it consists properly of 366, yet by the statute 21 Hen. III., the increasing day in the leap-year, together with the preceding day, shall be accounted for one day only.

That of a month is more ambiguous, there being in common use two ways of calculatng months, either as lunar-consisting of twenty-eight days, the supposed revolution of the moon, thirteen of which make a year-or as calendar months of unequal lengths, according to the Julian division in our common almanacs, commencing at the calends of each month, whereof in a year there are only twelve. A month in law is a lunar month, or twenty-eight days, unless otherwise expressed. Therefore a lease for "twelve months" is only for forty-eight weeks; but if it be for "a twelvemonth" in the singular number it is good for the whole year.

In the space of a day all the twenty-four hours are usually reckoned; the law generally rejecting all fractions of a day, in order to avoid disputes. Therefore if I am bound to pay money on any certain day, I discharge the obligation if I pay it before twelve o'clock at night, after which the following day commences.

Every estate which must expire at a period certain and prefixed, by whatever words created, is an estate for years. And therefore this estate is frequently called a term, terminus, because its duration or continuance is bounded, limited, and determined: for every such estate must have a certain beginning and certain end. But id certum est, quod certum reddi potest: therefore if a man make a lease to another for so many years, as J. S. shall name, it is a good lease for years: for though it is at present uncertain,

yet when J. S. hath named the years, it is then reduced to a certainty. If no day of commencement is named in the creation of this estate, it begins from the making or delivery of the lease. A lease for so many years as J. S. shall live, is void from the beginning for it is neither certain, nor can ever be reduced to a certainty, during the continuance of the lease. And the same doctrine holds, if a parson make a lease of his glebe for so many years as he shall continue parson of Dale; for this is still more uncertain. But a lease for twenty or more years, if J. S. shall so long live, or if he should so long continue parson, is good: for there is a certain period fixed, beyond which it cannot last; though it may determine sooner, on the death of J. S., or his ceasing to be parson there.

We have before remarked, and endeavored to assign the reason of, the inferiority in which the law places an estate for years, when compared with an estate for life, or an inheritance: observing, that an estate for life, even if it be pur auter vie, is a freehold; but that an estate for a thousand years is only a chattel, and reckoned part of the personal estate. Hence it follows, that a lease for years may be made to commence in futuro, though a lease for life cannot. As, if I grant lands to Titus to hold from Michaelmas next for twenty years, this is good; but to hold from Michaelmas next for the term of his natural life, is void. For no estate nor freehold can commence in futuro; because it cannot be created at common law without livery of seisin, or corporal possession of the land, and corporal possession cannot be given of an estate now, which is not to commence now, but hereafter. And, because no livery of seisin is necessary to a lease for years, such lessee is not said to be seised, or to have true legal seisin of the lands. Nor indeed does the bare lease vest any estate in the lessee: but only gives him a right of entry on the tenement, which right is called his interest in the term, or interesse termini, but when he has actually so entered, and thereby accepted the grant, the estate is then and not before, vested in him, and he is possessed, not properly of the land, but of the term of years; the possession or seisin of the land remaining still in him who hath the freehold. Thus the word term does not merely signify the time specified in the lease, but the estate also and interest that passes by that lease; and therefore the term may expire, during the continuance of the time; as by surrender, forfeiture, and the like. For which reason, if I grant a lease to A for the term of three years, and, after the expiration of the said term, to B for six years, and A surrenders or forfeits his lease at the end of one year, B's interest shall immediately take effect; but if the remainder had been to B from and after the expiration of the said three years, or from and after the expiration of said time, in this case B's interest will not commence till the time is fully elapsed, whatever may become of A's term.

Incidents to Term for Years.

Tenant for term of years hath incident to, and inseparable from his estate, unless by special agreement, the same estovers which we formerly observed that tenant for life was entitled to; that is to say, house-bote, fire-bote, plough-bote, and hay-bote; terms which have been already explained.

With regard to emblements, or the profits of lands sowed by tenant for years, there is this difference between him, and tenant for life: that where the term of tenant for years depends upon a certainty, as if he holds from midsummer for ten years, and in the last year he sows a crop of corn and it is not ripe and cut before midsummer the end of his term, the landlord shall have it; for the tenant knew the expiration of his term, and therefore it was his own folly to sow what he never could reap the profits of. But where the lease for years depends upon an uncertainty: as, upon the death of a lessor, being himself only tenant for life, or being a husband seised in right of his wife; or if the term of years be determinable upon a life or lives; in all these cases the estate for years not being certainly to expire at a time foreknown, but merely by the act of God, the tenant or his executors shall have the emblements in the same manner that a tenant for life or his executors shall be entitled thereto. Not so, if it determine by the act of the party himself: as, if tenant for years does anything that amounts to a forfeiture: in which case the emblements shall go to the lessor and not to the lessee, who hath determined his estate by his own default.

Estates at Will.

II. The second species of estate not freehold are estates at will. An estate at will is where lands and tenements are let by one man to another, to have and to hold at the will of the lessor; and the tenant by force of this lease obtains possession. Such tenant hath no certain indefeasible estate, nothing that can be assigned by him to any other; because the lessor may determine his will, and put him out whenever he pleases. But every estate at will, is at the will of both parties, landlord and tenant; so that either of them may determine his will and quit his connection with the other at his own pleasure. Yet this must be understood with some restriction. For if the tenant at will sows his land, and the landlord, before the corn is ripe or before it is reaped, puts him out, yet the tenant shall have the emblements, and free ingress, egress, and regress, to cut and carry away the profits. And this for the same reason upon which all cases of emblements turn; viz., the point of uncertainty; since the tenant could not possibly know when his landlord would determine his will, and therefore could make no provision against it; and having sown the land. which is for the good of the public upon a reasonable presumption,