Commentaries on the Laws of England/Of Alienation by Deed

by William Blackstone

Layout 4

 

Chapter the twentieth.

Of ALIENATION by DEED.

IN treating of deeds I shall consider, first, their general nature; and, next, the several sorts or kinds of deeds, with their respective incidents. And in explaining the former, I shall examine, first, what a deed is; secondly, it's requisites; and, thirdly, how it may be avoided.

I. First then, a deed is a writing sealed and delivered by the parties^[1]. It is sometimes called a charter, carta, from it's materials; but most usually, when applied to the transactions of private subjects, it is called a deed, in Latin factum, κατ' εξοχην, because it is the most solemn and authentic act that a man can possibly perform, with relation to the disposal of his property; and therefore a man shall always be estopped by his own deed, or not permitted to aver or prove any thing in contradiction to what he has once so solemnly and deliberately avowed^[2]. If a deed be made by more parties than one, there ought to be regularly as many copies of it as there are parties, and each should be cut or indented (formerly in acute angles instar dentium, but at present in a waving line) on the top or side, to tally or correspond with the other; which deed, so made, is called an indenture. Formerly, when deeds were more concise than at present, it was usual to write both parts on the same piece of parchment, with some word or letters of the alphabet written between them; through which the parchment was cut, either in a strait or indented line, in such a manner as to leave half the word on one part and half on the other. Deeds thus made were denominated syngrapha by the canonists^[3]; and with us chirographa, or hand-writings^[4]; the word cirographum or cyrographum being usually that which was divided in making the indenture: and this custom is still preserved in making out the indentures of a fine, whereof hereafter. But at length indenting only has come into use, without cutting through any letters at all; and it seems at present to serve for little other purpose, than to give name to the species of the deed. When the several parts of an indenture are interchangeably executed by the several parties, that part or copy which is executed by the grantor is usually called the original, and the rest are counterparts: though of late it is most frequent for all the parties to execute every part; which renders them all originals. A deed made by one party only is not indented, but polled or shaved quite even; and is therefore called a deed-poll, or a single deed^[5].

II. We are in the next place to consider the requisites of a deed. The first of which is, that there be persons able to contract and be contracted with, for the purposes intended by the deed; and also a thing, or subject matter to be contracted for; all which must be expressed by sufficient names^[6]. So as in every grant there must be a grantor, a grantee, and a thing granted; in every lease a lessor, a lessee, and a thing demised.

Secondly; the deed must be founded upon good and sufficient consideration. Not upon an usurious contract^[7]; nor upon fraud or collusion, either to deceive purchasors bona fide^[8], or just and lawful creditors^[9]; any of which bad considerations will vacate the deed. A deed also, or other grant, made without any consideration, is, as it were, of no effect; for it is construed to enure, or to be effectual, only to the use of the grantor himself^[10]. The consideration may be either a good, or a valuable one. A good consideration is such as that of blood, or of natural love and affection, when a man grants an estate to a near relation; being founded in motives of generosity, prudence, and natural duty: a valuable consideration is such as money, marriage, or the like, which the law esteems an equivalent given for the grant^[11]; and is therefore founded in motives of justice. Deeds, made upon good consideration only, are considered as merely voluntary, and are frequently set aside in favour of creditors, and bona fide purchasors.

Thirdly; the deed must be written, or I presume printed; for it may be in any character or any language; but it must be upon paper, or parchment. For if it be written on stone, board, linen, leather, or the like, it is no deed^[12]. Wood or stone may be more durable, and linen less liable to rasures; but writing on paper or parchment unites in itself, more perfectly than any other way, both those desirable qualities: for there is nothing else so durable, and at the same time so little liable to alteration; nothing so secure from alteration, that is at the same time so durable. It must also have the regular stamps, imposed on it by the several statutes for the increase of the public revenue; else it cannot be given in evidence. Formerly many conveyances were made by parol, or word of mouth only, without writing; but this giving a handle to a variety of frauds, the statute 29 Car. II. c. 3. enacts, that no lease or estate in lands, tenements, or hereditaments, (except leases, not exceeding three years from the making, and whereon the reserved rent is at least two thirds of the real value) shall be looked upon as of greater force than a lease or estate at will; unless put in writing, and signed by the party granting, or his agent lawfully authorized in writing.

Fourthly; the matter written must be legally and orderly set forth: that is, there must be words sufficient to specify the agreement and bind the parties: which sufficiency must be left to the courts of law to determine^[13]. For it is not absolutely necessary in law, to have all the formal parts that are usually drawn out in deeds, so as there be sufficient words to declare clearly and legally the party's meaning. But, as these formal and orderly parts are calculated to convey that meaning in the clearest, distinctest, and most effectual manner, and have been well considered and settled by the wisdom of successive ages, it is prudent not to depart from them without good reason or urgent necessity; and therefore I will here mention them in their usual^[14] order.

1. The premises may be used to set forth the number and names of the parties, with their additions or titles. They also contain the recital, if any, of such deeds, agreements, or matters of fact, as are necesssary to explain the reasons upon which the present transaction is founded: and herein also is set down the consideration upon which the deed is made. And then follows the certainty of the grantor, grantee, and thing granted^[15].

2, 3. Next come the habendum and tenendum^[16]. The office of the habendum is properly to determine what estate or interest is granted by the deed: though this may be performed, and sometimes is performed, in the premises. In which case the habendum may lessen, enlarge, explain, or qualify, but not totally contradict or be repugnant to, the estate granted in the premises. As if a grant be "to A and the heirs of his body," in the premises, habendum "to him and his heirs for ever," or vice versa, here A has an estate-tail, and a fee-simple expectant thereon^[17]. But, had it been in the premises "to him and his heirs," habendum "to him for life," the habendum would be utterly void^[18]; for an estate of inheritance is vested in him before the habendum comes, and shall not afterwards be taken away, or devested, by it. The tenendum, "and to hold," is now of very little use, and is only kept in by custom. It was sometimes formerly used to signify the tenure, by which the estate granted was to be holden; viz. "tenendum per servitium militare, in burgagio, in libero socagio, &c." But, all these being now reduced to free and common socage, the tenure is never specified. Before the statute of quia emptores, 18 Edw. I. it was also sometimes used to denote the lord of whom the land should be holden; but that statute directing all future purchasers to hold, not of the immediate grantor, but of the chief lord of the fee, this use of the tenendum hath been also antiquated; though for a long time after we find it mentioned in antient charters, that the tenements shall be holden de capitalibus dominis feodi^[19]: but, as this expressed nothing more than the statute had already provided for, it gradually grew out of use.

4. Next follow the terms or stipulations, if any, upon which the grant is made: the first of which is the reddendum or reservation, whereby the grantor doth create or reserve some new thing to himself out of what he had before granted. As "rendering thereby yearly the sum of ten shillings, or a pepper corn, or two days ploughing, or the like^[20]." This render, reditus, return, or rent, under the pure feodal system consisted, in chivalry, principally of military services; in villenage, of the most slavish offices; and, in socage, it usually consists of money, though it may consist of services still, or of any other certain profit^[21]. To make a reddendum good, if it be of any thing newly created by the deed, the reservation must be to the grantors, or some, or one of them, and not to any stranger to the deed^[22]. But if it be of antient services or the like, annexed to the land, then the reservation may be to the lord of the fee^[23].

5. Another of the terms upon which a grant may be made is a condition; which is a clause of contingency, on the happening of which the estate granted may be defeated; as "provided always, that if the mortgagor shall pay the mortgagee 500𝑙. upon such a day, the whole estate granted shall determine;" and the like^[24].

6. Next may follow the clause of warranty; whereby the grantor doth, for himself and his heirs, warrant and secure to the grantee the estate so granted^[25]. By the feodal constitution, if the vasal's title to enjoy the feud was disputed, he might vouch, or call, the lord or donor to warrant or insure his gift; which if he failed to do, and the vasal was evicted, the lord was bound to give him another feud of equal value in recompense^[26]. And so, by our antient law, if before the statute of quia emptores a man enfeoffed another in fee, by the feodal verb dedi, to hold of himself and his heirs by certain services; the law annexed a warranty to this grant, which bound the feoffor and his heirs, to whom the services (which were the consideration and equivalent for the gift) were originally stipulated to be rendered^[27]. Or if a man and his ancestors had immemorially holden land of another and his ancestors by the service of homage (which was called homage auncestrel) this also bound the lord to warranty^[28]; the homage being an evidence of such a feodal grant. And, upon a similar principle, in case, after a partition or exchange of haids of inheritance, either party or his heirs be evicted of his share, the other and his heirs are bound to warranty^[29], because they enjoy the equivalent. And so, even at this day, upon a gift in tail or lease for life, rendering rent, the donor or lessor and his heirs (to whom the rent is payable) are bound to warrant the title^[30]. But in a feoffment in fee by the verb dedi, since the statute of quia emptores, the feoffor only is bound to the implied warranty, and not his heirs^[31]; because it is a mere personal contract on the part of the feoffor, the tenure (and of course the antient services) resulting back to the superior lord of the fee. And in other forms of alienation, gradually introduced since that statute, no warranty whatsoever is implied^[32]; they bearing no sort of analogy to the original feodal donation. And therefore in such cases it became necessary to add an express clause of warranty, to bind the grantor and his heirs; which is a kind of covenant real, and can only be created by the verb warrantizo or warrant^[33].

These express warranties were introduced, even prior to the statute of quia emptores, in order to evade the strictness of the feodal doctrine of non-alienation without the consent of the heir. For, though he, at the death of his ancestor, might have entered on any tenements that were aliened without his concurrence, yet, if a clause of warranty was added to the ancestor's grant, this covenant descending upon the heir insured the grantee; not so much by confirming his title, as by obliging such heir to yield him a recompense in lands of equal value: the law, in favour of alienations, supposing that no ancestor would want only disinherit his next of blood^[34]; and therefore presuming that he had received a valuable consideration, either in land, or in money which had purchased land, and that this equivalent descended to the heir together with the ancestor's warranty. So that when either an ancestor, being the rightful tenant of the freehold, conveyed the land to a stranger and his heirs, or released the right in fee-simple to one who was already in possession, and superadded a warranty to his deed, it was held that such warranty not only bound the warrantor himself to protect and assure the title of the warrantee, but it also bound his heir: and this, whether that warranty was lineal, or collateral to the title of the land. Lineal warranty was where the heir derived, or might by possibility have derived, his title to the land warranted, either from or through the ancestor who made the warranty; as, where a father, or an elder son in the life of the father, released to the disseisor of either themselves or the grandfather, with warranty, this was lineal, to the younger son^[35]. Collateral warranty was where the heir's title to the land neither was, nor could have been, derived from the warranting ancestor; as, where a younger brother released to his father's disseisor, with warranty, this was collateral to the elder brother^[36]. But where the very conveyance, to which the warranty was annexed, immediately followed a disseisin, or operated itself as such (as, where a father tenant for years, with remainder to his son in fee, aliened in fee-simple with warranty) this, being in it's original manifestly founded on the tort or wrong of the warrantor himself, was called a warranty commencing by disseisin; and, being too palpably injurious to be supported, was not binding upon any heir of such tortious warrantor^[37].

In both lineal and collateral warranty, the obligation of the heir (in case the warrantee was evicted, to yield him other lands in their stead) was only on condition that he had other sufficient lands by descent from the warranting ancestor^[38]. But though, without assets, he was not bound to insure the title of another, yet, in case of lineal warranty, whether assets descended or not, the heir was perpetually barred from claiming the land himself; for, if he could succeed in such claim, he would then gain assets by descent (if he had them not before) and must fulfil the warranty of his ancestor: and the same rule^[39] was with less justice adopted also in respect of collateral warranties, which likewise (though no assets descended) barred the heir of the warrantor from claiming the land by any collateral title; upon the presumption of law that he might hereafter have assets by descent either from or through the same ancestor. The inconvenience of this latter branch of the rule was felt very early, when tenants by the curtesy took upon them to aliene their lands with warranty; which collateral warranty of the father descending upon his son (who was the heir of both his parents) barred him from claiming his maternal inheritance: to remedy which the statute of Glocester, 6 Edw. I. c. 3. declared, that such warranty should be no bar to the son, unless assets descended from the father. It was afterwards attempted in 50 Edw. III. to make the same provision universal, by enacting that no collateral warranty should be a bar, unless where assets descended from the same ancestor^[40]; but it then proceeded not to effect. However, by the statute 11 Hen. VII. c. 20. notwithstanding any alienation with warranty by tenant in dower, the heir of the husband is not barred, though he be also heir to the wife. And by statute 4 & 5 Ann. c. 16. all warranties by any tenant for life shall be void against those in remainder or reversion; and all collateral warranties by any ancestor who has no estate of inheritance in possession shall be void against his heir. By the wording of which last statute it should seem, that the legislature meant to allow, that the collateral warranty of tenant in tail, descending (though without assets) upon a remainder-man or reversioner, should still bar the remainder or reversion. For though the judges, in expounding the statute de donis, held that, by analogy to the statute of Glocester, a lineal warranty by the tenant in tail without assets should not bar the issue in tail, yet they held such warranty with assets to be a sufficient bar^[41]: which was therefore formerly mentioned^[42] as one of the ways whereby an estate-tail might be destroyed; it being indeed nothing more in effect, than exchanging the lands entailed for others of equal value. They also held that collateral warranty was not within the statute de donis; as that act was principally intended to prevent the tenant in tail from disinheriting his own issue: and therefore collateral warranty (though without assets) was allowed to be, as at common law, a sufficient bar of the estate tail and all remainders and reversions expectant thereon^[43]. And so it still continues to be, notwithstanding the statute of queen Anne, if made by tenant in tail in possession: who therefore may now, without the forms of a fine or recovery, in some cases make a good conveyance in fee-simple, by superadding a warranty to his grant; which, if accompanied with assets, bars his own issue, and without them bars such of his heirs as may be in remainder or reversion.

7. After warranty usually follow covenants, or conventions; which are clauses of agreement contained in a deed, whereby either party may stipulate for the truth of certain facts, or may bind himself to perform, or give, something to the other. Thus the grantor may covenant that he hath a right to convey; or for the grantee's quiet enjoyment; or the like: the grantee may covenant to pay his rent, to repair the premises, &c.^[44]. If the covenantor covenants for himself and his heirs, it is then a covenant real, and descends upon the heirs; who are bound to perform it, provided they have assets by descent, but not otherwise: if he covenants also for his executors and administrators, his personal assets, as well as his real, are likewise pledged for the performance of the covenant; which makes such covenant a better security than any warranty, and it has therefore in modern practice totally superseded the other.

8. Lastly, comes the conclusion, which mentions the execution and date of the deed, or the time of it's being given or executed, either expressly, or by reference to some day and year before-mentioned^[45]. Not but a deed is good, although it mention no date; or hath a false date; or even if it hath an impossible date, as the thirtieth of February; provided the real day of it's being dated or given, that is, delivered, can be proved^[46].

I proceed now to fifth requisite for making a good deed; the reading of it. This is necessary, wherever any of the parties desire it; and, if it be not done on his request, the deed is void as to him. If he can, he should read it himself: if he be blind or illiterate, another must read it to him. If it be read falsely, it will be void; at least for so much as is misrecited: unless it be agreed by collusion that the deed shall be read false, on purpose to make it void; for in such case it shall bind the fraudulent party^[47].

Sixthly, it is requisite that the party, whose deed it is, should seal, and in most cases I apprehend shouldy sign it also. The use of seals, as a mark of authenticity to letters and other instruments in writing, is extremely antient. We read of it among the Jews and Persians in the earliest and most sacred records of history^[48]. And in the book of Jeremiah there is a very remarkable instance, not only of an attestation by seal, but also of the other usual formalities attending a Jewish purchase^[49]. In the civil law also^[50], seals were the evidence of truth; and were required, on the part of the witnesses at least, at the attestation of every testament. But in the times of our Saxon ancestors, they were not much in use here. For though sir Edward Coke^[51] relies on an instance of king Edwyn's making use of a seal about an hundred years before the conquest, yet it does not follow that this was the usage among the whole nation: and perhaps the charter he mentions may be of doubtful authority, from this very circumstance, of being sealed; since we are assured by all our antient historians, that sealing was not then in common use. The method of the Saxons was for such as could write to subscribe their names, and, whether they could write or not, to affix the sign of the cross: which custom our illiterate vulgar do, for the most part, to this day keep up; by signing a cross for their mark, when unable to write their names. And indeed this inability to write, and therefore making a cross in it's stead, is honestly avowed by Caedwalla, a Saxon king, at the end of one of his charters^[52]. In like manner, and for the same unsurmountable reason, the Normans, a brave but illiterate nation, at their first settlement in France, used the practice of sealing only, without writing their names: which custom continued, when learning made it's way among them, though the reason for doing it had ceased; and hence the charter of Edward the confesssor to Westminster abbey, himself being brought up in Normandy, was witnessed only by his seal, and is generally thought to be the oldest sealed charter of any authenticity in England^[53]. At the conquest, the Norman lords brought over into this kingdom their own fashions; and introduced waxen seals only, instead of the English method of writing their names, and signing with the sign of the cross^[54]. The impressions of these seals were sometimes a knight on horseback, sometimes other devises: but coats of arms were not introduced into seals, nor indeed into any other use, till about the reign of Richard the first, who brought them from the croisade in the holy land; where they were first invented and painted on the shields of the knights, to distinguish the variety of persons of every christian nation who resorted thither, and who could not, when clad in complete steel, be otherwise known or ascertained.

This neglect of signing, and resting only upon the authenticity of seals, remained very long among us; for it was held in all our books that sealing alone was sufficient to authenticate a deed: and so the common form of attesting deeds, — "sealed and delivered," continues to this day; notwithstanding the statute 29 Car. II. c. 3. before-mentioned revives the Saxon custom, and expressly directs the signing, in all grants of lands, and many other species of deeds, in which therefore signing seems to be now as necessary as sealing, though it hath been sometimes held, that the one includes the other^[55].

A seventh requisite to a good deed is that it be delivered, by the party himself or his certain attorney: which therefore is also expressed in the attestation; "sealed and delivered." A deed takes effect only from this tradition or delivery; for, if the date be false or impossible, the delivery ascertains the time of it. And if another person seals the deed, yet if the party delivers it himself, he thereby adopts the sealing^[56], and by a parity of reason the signing also, and makes them both his own. A delivery may be either absolute, that is, to the party or grantee himself; or to a third person, to hold till some conditions be performed on the part of the grantee: in which last case it is not delivered as a deed, but as an escrow; that is, a scrowl or writing, which is not to take effect as a deed till the conditions be performed; and then it is a deed to all intents and purposes^[57].

The last requisite to the validity of a deed is the attestation, or execution of it in the presence of witnesses: though this is necessary, rather for preserving the evidence, than for constituting the essence, of the deed. Our modern deeds are in reality nothing more than an improvement or amplification of the brevia testata mentioned by the feodal writers^[58]; which were written memorandums, introduced to perpetuate the tenor of the conveyance and investiture, when grants by parol only became the foundation of frequent dispute and uncertainty. To this end they registered in the deed the persons who attended as witnesses, which was formerly done without their signing their names, (that not being always in their power) but they only heard the deed read; and then the clerk or scribe added their names, in a sort of memorandum; thus; "hijs testibus, Johanne Moore, Jacobo Smith, et aliis ad hanc rem convocatis^[59]." This, like all other solemn transactions, was originally done only coram paribus^[60], and frequently when assembled in the court baron, hundred, or county court; which was then expressed in the attestation, teste comitatu, hundredo, &c^[61]. Afterwards the attestation of other witnesses was allowed, the trial in case of a dispute being still reserved to the pares; with whom the witnesses (if more than one) were associated, and joined in the verdict^[62]: till that also was abrogated by the statute of York, 12 Edw. II. st. 1. c. 2. And in this manner, with some such clause of hijs testibus, are all old deeds and charters, particularly magna carta, witnessed. And, in the time of sir Edward Coke, creations of nobility were still witnessed in the same manner^[63]. But in the king's common charters, writs, or letters patent, the stile is now altered: for, at present, the king is his own witness, and attests his letters patent thus; "teste meipso, witness ourself at Westminfter, &c:" a form which was introduced by Richard the first^[64], but not commonly used till about the beginning of the fifteenth century; nor the clause of hijs testibus intirely discontinued till the reign of Henry the eighth^[65]: which was also the aera of discontinuing it in the deeds of subjects, learning being then revived, and the faculty of writing more general: and therefore ever since that time the witnesses have subscribed their attestation, either at the bottom, or on the back, of the deed^[66].

III. We are next to consider, how a deed may be avoided, or rendered of no effect. And from what has been before laid down it will follow, that if a deed wants any of the essential requisites before-mentioned; either, 1. Proper parties, and a proper subject matter: 2. A good and sufficient consideration: 3. Writing, on paper or parchment, duly stamped: 4. Sufficient and legal words, properly disposed: 5. Reading, if desired, before the execution: 6. Sealing; and, by the statute, in many cases signing also: or, 7. Delivery : it is a void deed ab initio. It may also be avoided by matter ex post facto: as, 1. By rasure, interlining, or other alteration in any material part; unless a memorandum be made thereof at the time of the execution and attestation^[67]. 2. By breaking off, or defacing, the seal^[68]. 3. By delivering it up to be cancelled; that is to have lines drawn over it, in the form of lattice work or cancelli; though the phrase is now used figuratively for any manner of obliteration or defacing it. 4. By the disagreement of such, whose concurrence is necessary, in order for the deed to stand: as, the husband, where a feme covert is concerned; an infant, or person under duress, when those difficulties are removed; and the like. 6. By the judgment or decree of a court of judicature. This was antiently the province of the court of star-chamber, and now of the chancery: when it appears that the deed was obtained by fraud, force, or other foul practice; or is proved to be an absolute forgery^[69]. In any of these cases the deed may be voided, either in part or totally, according as the cause of avoidance is more or less extensive.

And, having thus explained the general nature of deeds, we are next to consider their several species, together with their respective incidents. And herein I shall only examine the particulars of those, which, from long practice and experience of their efficacy, are generally used in the alienation of real estates: for it would be tedious, nay infinite, to descant upon all the several instruments made use of in personal concerns, but which fall under our general definition of a deed; that is, a writing sealed and delivered. The former, being principally such as serve to convey the property of lands and tenements from man to man, are commonly denominated conveyances: which are either conveyances at common law, or such as receive their force and efficacy by virtue of the statute of uses.

I. Of conveyances by the common law, some may be called original, or primary conveyances; which are those by means whereof the benefit or estate is created or first arises: others are derivative or secondary; whereby the benefit or estate, originally created, is enlarged, retrained, transferred, or extinguished.

Original conveyances are the following; 1. Feoffment; 2. Gift; 3. Grant; 4. Lease; 5. Exchange; 6. Partition: derivative are, 7. Release; 8. Confirmation; 9. Surrender; 10. Assignment; 11. Defeazance.

1. A feoffment, feoffamentum, is a substantive derived from the verb, to enfeoff, feoffare or infeudare, to give one a feud; and therefore feoffment is properly donatio feudi^[70]. It is the most antient method of conveyance, the most solemn and public, and therefore the most easily remembered and proved. And it may properly be defined, the gift of any corporeal hereditament to another. He that so gives, or enfeoffs, is called the feoffor; and the person enfeoffed is denominated the feoffee.

This is plainly derived from, or is indeed itself the very mode of the antient feodal donation; for though it may be performed by the word "enfeoff" or "grant," yet the aptest word of feoffment is "do or dedi^[71]." And it is still directed and governed by the same feodal rules; insomuch that the principal rule relating to the extent and effect of a feodal grant, "tenor est qui legem dat feudo," is in other words become the maxim of our law with relation to feoffments, "modus legem dat donationis^[72]." And therefore as in pure feodal donations the lord, from whom the feud moved, must expressly limit and declare the continuance or quantity of estate he meant to confer, "ne quis plus donasse praesumatur, quam in donatione expresserit^[73];" so, if one grants by feoffment lands or tenements to another, and limits or expresses no estate, the grantee (due ceremonies of law being performed) hath barely an estate for life^[74]. For, as the personal abilities of the feoffee were originally presumed to be the immediate or principal inducements to the feoffment, the feoffee's estate ought to be confined to his person, and subsist only for his life; unless the feoffor, by express provision in the creation and constitution of the estate, hath given it a longer continuance. These express provisions are indeed generally made; for this was for ages the only conveyance, whereby our ancestors were wont to create an estate in fee-simple^[75], by giving the land to the feoffee, to hold to him and his heirs for ever; though it serves equally well to convey any other estate of freehold^[76].

But by the mere words of the deed the feoffment is by no means perfected. There remains a very material ceremony to be performed, called livery of seisin; without which the feoffee has but a mere estate at will^[77]. This livery of seisin is no other than the pure feodal investiture, or delivery of corporal possession of the land or tenement; which was held absolutely necessary to complete the donation. "Nam feudum sine investitura nullo modo constitui potuit^[78]:" and an estate was then only perfect, when, as Fleta expresses it in our law, "fit juris et seisinae conjunctio^[79]."

Investitures, in their original rise, were probably intended to demonstrate in conquered countries the actual possession of the lord; and that he did not grant a bare litigious right, which the soldier was ill qualified to prosecute, but a peaceable and firm possession. And, at a time when writing was seldom practised, a mere oral gift, at a distance from the spot that was given, was not likely to be either long or accurately retained in the memory of by-standers, who were very little interested in the grant. Afterwards they were retained as a public and notorious act, that the country might take notice of and testify the transfer of the estate; and that such as claimed title by other means might know against whom to bring their actions.

In all well-governed nations, some notoriety of this kind has been ever held requisite, in order to acquire and ascertain the property of lands. In the Roman law plenum dominium was not said to subsist, unless where a man hath both the right, and the corporal possession; which possession could not be acquired without both an actual intention to possess, and an actual seisin, or entry into the premises, or part of them in the name of the whole^[80]. And even in ecclesiastical promotions, where the freehold passes to the person promoted, corporal possession is required at this day, to vest the property completely in the new proprietor; who, according to the distinction of the canonists^[81], acquires the jus ad rem, or inchoate and imperfect right, by nomination and institution; but not the jus in re, or complete and full right, unless by corporal possession. Therefore in dignities possession is given by installment; in rectories and vicarages by induction, without which no temporal rights accrue to the minister, though every ecclesiastical power is vested in him by institution. So also even in descents of lands, by our law, which are cast on the heir by act of the law itself, the heir has not plenum dominium, or full and complete ownership, till he has made an actual corporal entry into the lands: for if he dies before entry made, his heir shall not be intitled to take the possession, but the heir of the person who was last actually seised^[82]. It is not therefore only a mere right to enter, but the actual entry, that makes a man complete owner; so as to transmit the inheritance to his own heirs: non jus, sed seisina, facit stipitem^[83].

Yet, the corporal tradition of lands being sometimes inconvenient, a symbolical delivery of possession was in many cases antiently allowed; by transferring something near at hand, in the presence of credible witnesses, which by agreement should serve to represent the very thing designed to be conveyed; and an occupancy of this sign or symbol was permitted as equivalent to occupancy of the land itself. Among the Jews we find the evidence of a purchase thus defined in the book of Ruth^[84]: "now this was the manner in former time in Israel, concerning redeeming and concerning changing, for to confirm all things: a man plucked off his shoe, and gave it to his neighbour; and this was a testimony in Israel." Among the antient Goths and Swedes, contracts for the sale of lands were made in the presence of witnesses, who extended the cloak of the buyer, while the seller cast a clod of the land into it, in order to give possession; and a staff or wand was also delivered from the vendor to the vendee, which passed through the hands of the witnesses^[85]. With our Saxon ancestors the delivery of a turf was a necessary solemnity, to establish the conveyance of lands^[86]. And, to this day, the conveyance of our copyhold estates is usually made from the seller to the lord or his steward by delivery of a rod or verge, and then from the lord to the purchasor by re-delivery of the same, in the presence of a jury of tenants.

Conveyances in writing were the last and most refined improvement. The mere delivery of possession, either actual or symbolical, depending on the ocular testimony and remembrance of the witnesses, was liable to be forgotten or misrepresented, and became frequently incapable of proof. Besides, the new occasions and necessities, introduced by the advancement of commerce, required means to be devised of charging and incumbering estates, and of making them liable to a multitude of conditions and minute designations for the purposes of raising money, without an absolute sale of the land; and sometimes the like proceedings were found useful in order to make a decent and competent provision for the numerous branches of a family, and for other domestic views. None of which could be effected by a mere, simple, corporal transfer of the soil from one man to another, which was principally calculated for conveying an absolute unlimited dominion. Written deeds were therefore introduced, in order to specify and perpetuate the peculiar purposes of the party who conveyed: yet still, for a very long series of years, they were never made use of, but in company with the more antient and notorious method of transfer, by delivery of corporal possession.

Livery of seisin, by the common law, is necessary to be made upon every grant of an estate of freehold in hereditaments corporeal, whether of inheritance or for life only. In hereditaments incorporeal it is impossible to be made; for they are not the object of the senses: and in leases for years, or other chattel interests, it is not necessary. In leases for years indeed an actual entry is necessary, to vest the estate in the lessee: for the bare lease gives him only a right to enter, which is called his interest in the term, or interesse termini; and, when he enters in pursuance of that right, he is then and not before in possession of his term, and complete tenant for years^[87]. This entry by the tenant himself serves the purpose of notoriety, as well as livery of seisin from the grantor could have done; which it would have been improper to have given in this case, because that solemnity is appropriated to the conveyance of a freehold. And this is one reason why freeholds cannot be made to commence in futuro, because they cannot be made but by livery of seisin; which livery, being an actual manual tradition of the land, must take effect in praesenti, or not at all^[88].

On the creation of a freehold remainder, at one and the same time with a particular estate for years, we have before seen that at the common law livery must be made to the particular tenant^[89]. But if such a remainder be created afterwards, expectant on a lease for years now in being, the livery must not be made to the lessee for years, for then it operates nothing; "nam quod semel meum est, amplius meum esse non potest^[90]:" but it must be made to the remainder-man himself, by consent of the lessee for years: for without his consent no livery of the possession can be given^[91]; partly because such forcible livery would be an ejectment of the tenant from his term, and partly for the reasons before given^[92] for introducing the doctrine of attornments.

Livery of seisin is either in deed, or in law. Livery in deed is thus performed. The feoffor, lessor, or his attorney, together with the feoffee, lessee, or his attorney, (for this may as effectually be done by deputy or attorney, as by the principals themselves in person) come to the land, or to the house; and there, in the presence of witnesses, declare the contents of the feoffment or lease, on which livery is to be made. And then the feoffor, if it be of land, doth deliver to the feoffee, all other persons being out of the ground, a clod or turf, or a twig or bough there growing, with words to this effect. "I deliver these to you in the name of seisin of all the lands and tenements contained in this deed." But, if it be of a house, the feoffor must take the ring, or latch of the door, the house being quite empty, and deliver it to the feoffee in the same form; and then the feoffee must enter alone, and shut to the door, and then open it, and let in the others^[93]. If the conveyance or feoffment be of divers lands, lying scattered in one and the same county, then in the feoffor's possession, livery of seisin of any parcel, in the name of the rest, sufficeth for all^[94]; but, if they be in several counties, there must be as many liveries as there are counties. For, if the title to these lands comes to be disputed, there must be as many trials as there are counties, and the jury of one county are no judges of the notoriety of a fact in another. Besides, antiently this seisin was obliged to be delivered coram paribus de vicineto, before the peers or freeholders of the neighbourhood, who attested such delivery in the body or on the back of the deed; according to the rule of the feodal law^[95], pares debent interesse investiturae feudi, et non alii: for which this reason is expressly given; because the peers or vasals of the lord, being bound by their oath of fealty, will take care that no fraud be committed to his prejudice, which strangers might be apt to connive at. And though, afterwards, the ocular attestation of the pares was held unnecessary, and livery might be made before any credible witnesses, yet the trial, in case it was disputed, (like that of all other attestations^[96]) was still reserved to the pares or jury of the county^[97]. Also, if the lands be out on lease, though all lie in the same county, there must be as many liveries as there are tenants: because no livery can be made in this case, but by the consent of the particular tenant; and the consent of one will not bind the rest^[98]. And in all these cases it is prudent, and usual, to endorse the livery of seisin on the back of the deed, specifying the manner, place, and time of making it; together with the names of the witnesses^[99]. And thus much for livery in deed.

Livery in law is where the same is not made on the land, but in sight of it only; the feoffor saying to the feoffee, "I give you yonder land, enter and take possession." Here, if the feoffee enters during the life of the feoffor, it is a good livery, but not otherwise; unless he dares not enter, through fear of his life or bodily harm: and then his continual claim, made yearly, in due form of law, as near as possible to the lands^[100], will suffice without an entry^[101]. This livery in law cannot however be given or received by attorney, but only by the parties themselves^[102].

2. The conveyance by gift, donatio, is properly applied to the creation of an estate-tail, as feoffment is to that of an estate in fee, and lease to that of an estate for life or years. It differs in nothing from a feoffment, but in the nature of the estate passing by it: for the operative words of conveyance in this case are do or dedi^[103]; and gifts in tail are equally imperfect without livery of seisin, as feoffments in fee-simple^[104]. And this is the only distinction that Littleton seems to take, when he says^[105], "it is to be understood that there is feoffor and feoffee, donor and donee, lessor and lessee;" viz. feoffor is applied to a feoffment in fee-simple, donor to a gift in tail, and lessor to a lease for life, or for years, or at will. In common acceptation gifts are frequently confounded with the next species of deeds: which are,

3. Grants, concessiones; the regular method by the common law of transferring the property of incorporeal hereditaments, or, such things whereof no livery can be had^[106]. For which reason all corporeal hereditaments, as lands and houses, are said to lie in livery; and the others, as advowsons, commons, rents, reversions, &c, to lie in grant^[107]. And the reason is given by Bracton^[108]: "traditio, or livery, nihil aliud est quam rei corporalis de persona in personam, de manu in manum, translatio aut in possessionem inductio; sed res incorporales, quae sunt ipsum jus rei vel corpori inhaerens, traditionem non patiuntur." These therefore pass merely by the delivery of the deed. And in signiories, or reversions of lands, such grant, together with the attornment of the tenant (while attornments were requisite) were held to be of equal notoriety with, and therefore equivalent to, a feoffment and livery of lands in immediate possession. It therefore differs but little from a feoffment, except in it's subject matter: for the operative words therein commonly used are dedi et concessi, "have given and granted."

4. A lease is properly a conveyance of any lands or tenements, (usually in consideration of rent or other annual recompense) made for life, for years, or at will, but always for a less time than the lessor hath in the premises: for if it be for the whole interest, it is more properly an assignment than a lease. The usual words of operation in it are, "demise, grant, and to farm set; dimisi, concessi, et ad firmam tradidi." Farm, or feorme, is an old Saxon word signifying provisions^[109]: and it came to be used instead of rent or render, because antiently the greater part of rents were reserved in provisions; in corn, in poultry, and the like; till the use of money became more frequent. So that a farmer, firmarius, was one who held his lands upon payment of a rent or feorme: though at present, by a gradual departure from the original sense, the word farm is brought to signify the very estate or lands so held upon farm or rent. By this conveyance an estate for life, for years, or at will, may be created, either in corporeal or incorporeal hereditaments: though livery of seisin is indeed incident and necessary to one species of leases, viz. leases for life of corporeal hereditaments; but to no other.

Whatever restrictions, by the severity of the feodal law, might in times of very high antiquity be observed with regard to leases; yet by the common law, as it has stood for many centuries, all persons seised of any estate might let leases to endure so long as their own interest lasted, but no longer. Therefore tenant in fee-simple might let leases of any duration; for he hath the whole interest: but tenant in tail, or tenant for life, could make no leases which should bind the issue in tail or reversioner; nor could a husband, seised jure uxoris, make a firm or valid lease for any longer term than the joint lives of himself and his wife, for then his interest expired. Yet some tenants for life, where the fee-simple was in abeyance, might (with the concurrence of such as have the guardianship of the fee) make leases of equal duration with those granted by tenants in fee-simple: such as parsons and vicars with consent of the patron and ordinary^[110]. So also bishops, and deans, and such other sole ecclesiastical corporations as are seised of the fee-simple of lands in their corporate right, might, with the concurrence and confirmation of such persons as the law requires, have made leases for years, or for life, estates in tail, or in fee, without any limitation or controll. And corporations aggregate might have made what estates they pleased, without the confirmation of any other person whatsoever. Whereas now, by several statutes, this power where it was unreasonable, and might be made an ill use of, is restrained; and, where in the other cases the restraint by the common law seemed too hard, it is in some measure removed. The former statutes are called the restraining, the latter the enabling statute. We will take a view of them all, in order of time.

And, first, the enabling statute, 32 Hen. VIII. c. 28. empowers three manner of persons to make leases, to endure for three lives or one and twenty years, which could not do so before. As, first, tenant in tail, may by such leases bind his issue in tail, but not those in remainder or reversion. Secondly, a husband seised in right of his wife, in fee-simple or fee-tail, provided the wife joins in such lease, may bind her and her heirs thereby. Lastly, all persons seised of an estate of fee-simple in right of their churches, except parsons and vicars, may (without the concurrence of any other person) bind their successors. But then there must many requisites be observed, which the statute specifies, otherwise such leases are not binding^[111]. 1. The lease must be by indenture; and not by deed poll, or by parol. 2. It must begin from the making, or day of the making, and not at any greater distance of time. 3. If there be any old lease in being, it must be first absolutely surrendered, or be within a year of expiring. 4. It must be either for twenty one years, or three lives; and not for both. 5. It must not exceed the term of three lives, or twenty one years, but maybe for a shorter term. 6. It must be of corporeal hereditaments, and not of such things as lie merely in grant; for no rent can be reserved thereout by the common law, as the lessor cannot resort to them to distrein^[112]. 7. It must be of lands and tenements most commonly letten for twenty years past; so that if they have been let for above half the time (or eleven years out of the twenty) either for life, for years, at will, or by copy of court roll, it is sufficient. 8. The most usual and customary feorm or rent, for twenty years past, must be reserved yearly on such lease. 9. Such leases must not be made without impeachment of waste. These are the guards, imposed by the statute (which was avowedly made for the security of farmers and the consequent improvement of tillage) to prevent unreasonable abuses, in prejudice of the issue, the wife, or the successor, of the reasonable indulgence here given.

Next follows, in order of time, the disabling or restraining statute, 1 Eliz. c. 19. (made entirely for the benefit of the successor) which enacts, that all grants by archbishops and bishops (which include even those confirmed by the dean and chapter; the which, however long and unreasonable, were good at common law) other than for the term of one and twenty years or three lives from the making, or without reserving the usual rent, shall be void. Concurrent leases, if confirmed by the dean and chapter, are held to be within the exception of this statute, and therefore valid; provided they do not exceed (together with the lease in being) the term permitted by the act^[113]. But, by a saving expressly made, this statute of 1 Eliz. did not extend to grants made by any bishop to the crown; by which means queen Elizabeth procured many fair possessions to be made over to her by the prelates, either for her own use, or with intent to be granted out again to her favourites, whom she thus gratified without any expense to herself. To prevent which^[114] for the future, the statute 1 Jac. I. c. 3. extends the prohibition to grants and leases made to the king, as well as to any of his subjects.

Next comes the statute 13 Eliz. c. 10. explained and enforced by the statutes 14 Eliz. c. 11 & 14. 18 Eliz. c. 11. and 43 Eliz. c. 29. which extend the restrictions, laid by the last mentioned statute on bishops, to certain other inferior corporations, both sole and aggregate. From laying all which together we may collect, that all colleges, cathedrals, and other ecclesiastical, or eleemosynary corporations, and all parsons and vicars, are restrained from making any leases of their lands, unless under the following regulations: 1. They must not exceed twenty one years, or three lives, from the making. 2. The accustomed rent, or more, must be yearly reserved thereon. 3. Houses in corporations, or market towns, may be let for forty years; provided they be not the mansion-houses of the lessors, nor have above ten acres of ground belonging to them; and provided the lessee be bound to keep them in repair: and they may also be aliened in fee-simple for lands of equal value in recompense. 4. Where there is an old lease in being, no concurrent lease shall be made, unless where the old one will expire within three years. 5. No lease (by the equity of the statute) shall be made without impeachment of waste^[115]. 6. All bonds and covenants tending to frustrate the provisions of the statutes 13 & 18 Eliz. shall be void.

Concerning these restrictive statutes there are two observations to be made. First, that they do not, by any construction, enable any persons to make such leases as they were by common law disabled to make. Therefore a parson, or vicar, though he is restrained from making longer leases than for twenty one years or three lives, even with the consent of patron and ordinary, yet is not enabled to make any lease at all, so as to bind his successor, without obtaining such consent^[116]. Secondly, that though leases contrary to these acts are declared void, yet they are good against the lessor during his life, if he be a sole corporation; and are also good against an aggregate corporation so long as the head of it lives, who is presumed to be the most concerned in interest. For the act was intended for the benefit of the successor only; and no man shall make an advantage of his own wrong^[117].

There is yet another restriction with regard to college leases, by statute 18 Eliz. c. 6. which directs, that one third of the old rent, then paid, should for the future be reserved in wheat or malt, reserving a quarter of wheat for each 6s 8d, or a quarter of malt for every 5s; or that the lessees should pay for the same according to the price that wheat and malt should be sold for, in the market next adjoining to the respective colleges, on the market-day before the rent becomes due. This is said^[118] to have been an invention of lord treasurer Burleigh, and sir Thomas Smith, then principal secretary of state; who, observing how greatly the value of money had sunk, and the price of all provisions risen, by the quantity of bullion imported from the newfound Indies, (which effects were likely to increase to a greater degree) devised this method for upholding the revenues of colleges. Their forefight and penetration has in this respect been very apparent: for, though the rent so reserved in corn was at first but one third of the old rent, or half of what was still reserved in money, yet now the proportion is nearly inverted; and the money arising from corn rents is, communibus annis, almost double to the rents reserved in money.

The leases of beneficed clergymen are farther restrained, in case of their non-residence, by statutes 13 Eliz. c. 20. 14 Eliz. c. 11. and 18 Eliz. c. 11. which direct, that, if any beneficed clergyman be absent from his cure above fourscore days in any one year, he shall not only forfeit one year's profit of his benefice, to be distributed among the poor of the parish; but that all leases made by him, of the profits of such benefice, and all covenants and agreements of like nature, shall cease and be void: except in the case of licensed pluralists, who are allowed to demise the living, on which they are non-resident, to their curates only; provided such curates do not absent themselves above forty days in any one year. And thus much for leases, with their several enlargements and restrictions^[119].

5. An exchange is a mutual grant of equal interests, the one in consideration of the other. The word "exchange" is so individually requisite and appropriated by law to this case, that it cannot be supplied by any other word or expressed by any circumlocution^[120]. The estates exchanged must be equal in quantity^[121]; not of value, for that is immaterial, but of interest; as fee-simple for fee-simple, a lease for twenty years for a lease for twenty years, and the like. And the exchange may be of things that lie either in grant or in livery^[122]. But no livery of seisin, even in exchanges of freehold, is necessary to perfect the conveyance^[123]: for each party stands in the place of the other and occupies his right, and each of them hath already had corporal possession of his own land. But entry must be made on both sides; for, if either party die before entry, the exchange is void, for want of sufficient notoriety^[124]. And so also, if two parsons, by consent of patron and ordinary, exchange their preserments; and the one is presented, instituted, and inducted, and the other is presented, and instituted, but dies before induction; the former shall not keep his new benefice, because the exchange was not completed, and therefore he shall return back to his own^[125]. For if, after an exchange of lands or other hereditaments, either party be evicted of those which were taken by him in exchange, through defect of the other's title; he shall return back to the possession of his own, by virtue of the implied warranty contained in all exchanges^[126].

6. A partition, is when two or more joint-tenants, coparceners, or tenants in common, agree to divide the lands so held among them in severalty, each taking a distinct part. Here, as in some instances there is a unity of interest, and in all a unity of possession, it is necessary that they all mutually convey and assure to each other the several estates, which they are to take and enjoy separately. By the common law coparceners, being compellable to make partition, might have made it by parol only; but joint-tenants and tenants in common must have done it by deed: and in both cases the conveyance must have been perfected by livery of seisin^[127]. And the statutes of 31 Hen. VIII. c. 1. and 32 Hen. VIII. c. 32. made no alteration in this point. But the statute of frauds 29 Car. II. c. 3. hath now abolished this distinction, and made a deed in all cases necessary.

These are the several species of primary, or original conveyances. Those which remain are of the secondary, or derivative sort; which presuppose some other conveyance precedent, and only serve to enlarge, confirm, alter, restrain, restore, or transfer the interest granted by such original conveyance. As,

7. Releases; which are a discharge or conveyance of a man's right in lands or tenements, to another that hath some former estate in possession. The words generally used therein are "remised, released, and for ever quit-claimed^[128]." And these releases may enure either, 1. By way of enlarging an estate, or enlarger l'estate: as, if there be tenant for life or years, remainder to another in fee, and he in remainder releases all his right to the particular tenant and his heirs, this gives him the estate in fee^[129]. But in this case the relessee must be in possession of some estate, for the release to work upon; for if there be lessee for years, and, before he enters and is in possession, the lessor releases to him all his right in the reversion, such release is void for want of possession in the relessee^[130]. 2. By way of passing an estate, or mitter l'estate: as when one of two coparceners releaseth all her right to the other, this passeth the fee-simple of the whole^[131]. And in both these cases there must be a privity of estate between the relessor and relessee^[132]; that is, one of their estates must be so related to the other, as to make but one and the same estate in law. 3. By way of passing a right, or mitter le droit: as if a man be disseised, and releaseth to his disseisor all his right; hereby the disseisor acquires a new right, which changes the quality of his estate, and renders that lawful which before was tortious^[133]. 4. By way of extinguishment: as if my tenant for life makes a lease to A for life, remainder to B and his heirs, and I release to A; this extinguishes my right to the reversion, and shall enure to the advantage of B's remainder as well as of A's particular estate^[134]. 5. By way of entry and feoffment: as if there be two joint disseisors, and the disseisee releases to one of them, he shall be sole seised; and shall keep out his former companion; which is the same in effect as if the disseisee had entered, and thereby put an end to the disseisin, and afterwards had enfeoffed one of the disseisors in fee^[135]. And hereupon we may observe, that when a man has in himself the possession of lands, he must at the common law convey the freehold by feoffment and livery; which makes a notoriety in the country: but if a man has only a right or a future interest, he may convey that right or interest by a mere release to him that is in possession of the land: for the occupancy of the relessee is a matter of sufficient notoriety already.

8. A confirmation is of a nature nearly allied to a release. Sir Edward Coke defines if^[136] to be a conveyance of an estate or right in esse, whereby a voidable estate is made sure and unavoidable, or whereby a particular estate is encreased: and the words of making it are these, "have given, granted, ratified, approved, and confirmed^[137]." An instance of the first branch of the definition is, if tenant for life leaseth for forty years, and dieth during that term; here the lease for years is voidable by him in reversion: yet, if he hath confirmed the estate of the lessee for years, before the death of tenant for life, it is no longer voidable but sure^[138]. The latter branch, or that which tends to the encrease of a particular estate, is the same in all respects with that species of release, which operates by way of enlargement.

9. A surrender, sursumredditio, or rendering up, is of a nature directly opposite to a release; for, as that operates by the greater estate's descending upon the less, a surrender is the falling of a less estate into a greater by deed. It is defined^[139], a yielding up of an estate for life or years to him that hath the immediate reversion or remainder, wherein the particular estate may merge or drown, by mutual agreement between them. It is done by these words, "hath surrendered, granted, and yielded up." The surrenderor must be in possession^[140]; and the surrenderee must have a higher estate, in which the estate surrendered may merge: therefore tenant for life cannot surrender to him in remainder for years^[141]. In a surrender there is no occasion for livery of seisin^[142]; for there is a privity of estate between the surrenderor, and the surrenderee; the one's particular estate, and the other's remainder are one and the same estate; and livery having been once made at the creation of it, there is no necessity for having it afterwards. And, for the same reason, no livery is required on a release or confirmation in fee to tenant for years or at will, though a freehold thereby passes; since the reversion of the relessor, or confirmor, and the particular estate of the relessee, or confirmee, are one and the same estate; and where there is already a possession, derived from such a privity of estate, any farther delivery of possession would be vain and nugatory^[143].

10. An assignment is properly a transfer, or making over to another, of the right one has in any estate; but it is usually applied to an estate for life or years. And it differs from a lease only in this: that by a lease one grants an interest less than his own, reserving to himself a reversion; in assignments he parts with the whole property, and the assignee stands to all intents and purposes in the place of the assignor.

11. A defeazance is a collateral deed, made at the same time with a feoffment or other conveyance, containing certain conditions, upon the performance of which the estate then created may be defeated^[144] or totally undone. And in this manner mortgages were in former times usually made; the mortgagor enfeoffing the mortgagee, and he at the same time executing a deed of defeazance, whereby the feoffment was rendered void on re-payment of the money borrowed at a certain day. And this, when executed at the same time with the original feoffment, was considered as part of it by the antient law^[145]; and, therefore only, indulged: no subsequent secret revocation of a solemn conveyance, executed by livery of seisin, being allowed in those days of simplicity and truth; though, when uses were afterwards introduced, a revocation of such uses was permitted by the courts of equity. But things that were merely executory, or to be completed by matter subsequent, (as rents, of which no seisin could be had till the time of payment; and so also annuities, conditions, warranties, and the like) were always liable to be recalled by defeazances made subsequent to the time of their creation^[146].

II. There yet remain to be spoken of some few conveyances, which have their force and operation by virtue of statute of uses.

Uses and trusts are in their original of a nature very similar, or rather exactly the same: answering more to the fidei-commissum than the usus-fructus, of the civil law; which latter was the temporary right of using a thing, without having the ultimate property, or full dominion of the substance^[147]. But the fidei-commissum, which usually was created by will, was the disposal of an inheritance to one, in confidence that he should convey it or dispose of the profits at the will of another. And it was the business of a particular magistrate, the praetor fidei-commissarius, instituted by Augustus, to enforce the observance of this confidence^[148]. So that the right thereby given was looked upon as a vested right, and entitled to a remedy from a court of justice: which occasioned that known division of rights by the Roman law, into jus legitimum, a legal right, which was remedied by the ordinary course of law; jus fiduciarium, a right in trust, for which there was a remedy in conscience; and jus precarium, a right in courtesy, for which the remedy was only by in treaty or request^[149]. In our law, a use might be ranked under the rights of the second kind; being a confidence reposed in another who was tenant of the land, or terre-tenant, that he should dispose of the land according to the intentions of cestuy que use, or him to whose use it was granted, and suffer him to take the profits^[150]. As, if a feoffment was made to A and his heirs, to the use of (or in trusr for) B and his heirs; here at the common law A the terre-tenant had the legal property and possession of the land, but B the cestuy que use was in conscience and equity to have the profits and disposal of it.

This notion was transplanted into England from the civil law, about the close of the reign of Edward III^[151], by means of the foreign ecclesiastics; who introduced it to evade the statutes of mortmain, by obtaining grants of lands, not to their religious houses directly, but to the use of the religious houses^[152]: which the clerical chancellors of those times held to be fidei-commisssa, and binding in conscience; and therefore assumed the jurisdiction, which Augustus had vested in his praetor, of compelling the execution of such trusts in the court of chancery. And, as it was most easy to obtain such grants from dying persons, a maxim was established, that though by law the lands themselves were not devisable, yet if a testator had enfeoffed another to his own use, and so was possessed of the use only, such use was devisable by will. But we have seen^[153] how this evasion was crushed in it's infancy, by statute 15 Ric. II. c. 5. with respect to religious houses.

Yet, the idea being once introduced, however fraudulently, it afterwards continued to be often innocently, and sometimes very laudably, applied to a number of civil purposes: particularly as it removed the restraint of alienations by will, and permitted the owner of lands in his lifetime to make various designations of their profits, as prudence, or justice, or family convenience, might from time to time require. Till at length, during our long wars in France and the subsequent civil commotions between the houses of York and Lancaster, uses grew almost universal: through the desire that men had (when their lives were continually in hazard) of providing for their children by will, and of securing their estates from forfeitures; when each of the contending parties, as they became uppermost, alternately attainted the other. Wherefore about the reign of Edward IV, (before whose time, lord Bacon remarks^[154], there are not six cases to be found relating to the doctrine of uses) the courts of equity began to reduce them to something of a regular system.

Originally it was held that the chancery could give no relief, but against the very person himself intrusted for cestuy que use, and not against his heir or alienee. This was altered in the reign of Henry VI, with respect to the heir^[155]; and afterwards the same rule, by a parity of reason, was extended to such alienees as had purchased either without a valuable consideration, or with an express notice of the use^[156]. But a purchasor for a valuable consideration, without notice, might hold the land discharged of any trust or confidence. And also it was held, that neither the king or queen, on account of their dignity royal^[157], nor any corporation aggregate, on account of it's limited capacity^[158], could be seised to any use but their own; that is, they might hold the lands, but were not compellable to execute the trust. And, if the feoffee to uses died without heir, or committed a forfeiture, or married, neither the lord who entered for his escheat or forfeiture, nor the husband who retained the possession as tenant by the curtesy, nor the wife who was assigned her dower, were liable to perform the use^[159]; because they were not parties to the trust, but came in by act of law: though doubtless their title in reason was no better than that of the heir.

On the other hand the use itself, or interest of cestuy que use, was learnedly refined upon with many elaborate distinctions. And, 1. It was held that nothing could be granted to a use, whereof the use is inseparable from the possession; as annuities, ways, commons, and authorities, quae ipso usu consumuntur^[160]: or whereof the seisin could not be instantly given^[161]. 2. A use could not be raised without a sufficient consideration. For where a man makes a feoffment to another without any consideration, equity presumes that he meant it to the use of himself^[162]: unless he expressly declares it to be to the use of another, and then nothing shall be presumed contrary to his own expressions^[163]. But, if either a good or a valuable consideration appears, equity will immediately raise a use correspondent to such consideration^[164]. 3. Uses were descendible according to the rules of the common law, in the case of inheritances in possession^[165]; for in this and many other respects aequitas sequitur legem, and cannot establish a different rule of property from that which the law has established. 4. Uses might be assigned by secret deeds between the parties^[166], or be devised by last will and testament^[167]: for, as the legal estate in the soil was not transferred by these transactions, no livery of seisin was necessary; and, as the intention of the parties was the leading principle in this species of property, any instrument declaring that intention was allowed to be binding in equity. But cestuy que use could not at common law aliene the legal interest of the lands, without the concurrence of his feoffee^[168]; to whom he was accounted by law to be only tenant at sufferance^[169]. Uses were not liable to any of the feodal burthens; and particularly did not escheat for felony or other defect of blood; for escheats, &c, are the consequence of tenure, and uses are held of nobody: but the land itself was liable to escheat, whenever the blood of the feoffee to uses was extinguished by crime or by defect; and the lord (as was before observed) might hold it discharged of the use^[170]. 6. No wife could be endowed, or husband have his curtesy, of a use^[171]: for no trust was declared for their benefit, at the original grant of the estate. And therefore it became customary, when most estates were put in use, to settle before marriage some joint estate to the use of the husband and wife for their lives; which was the original of modern jointures^[172]. 7. A use could not be extended by writ of elegit, or other legal process, for the debts of cestuy que use^[173]. For, being merely a creature of equity, the common law, which looked no farther than to the person actually seised of the land, could award no process against it.

It is impracticable, upon our present plan, to pursue the doctrine of uses through all the refinements and niceties, which the ingenuity of the times (abounding in subtile disquisitions) deduced from this child of the imagination; when once a departure was permitted from the plain simple rules of property established by the antient law. These principal outlines will be fully sufficient to shew the ground of lord Bacon's complaint^[174], that this course of proceeding "was turned to deceive many of their just and reasonable rights. A man, that had cause to sue for land, knew not against whom to bring his action, or who was the owner of it. The wife was defrauded of her thirds; the husband of his curtesy; the lord of his wardship, relief, heriot, and escheat; the creditor of his extent for debt; and the poor tenant of his lease." To remedy these inconveniences abundance of statutes were provided, which made the lands liable to be extended by the creditors of cestuy que use^[175]; allowed actions for the freehold to be brought against him, if in the actual pernancy or enjoyment of the profits^[176]; made him liable to actions of waste^[177]; established his conveyances and leases made without the concurrence of his feoffees^[178]; and gave the lord the wardship of his heir, with certain other feodal perquisites^[179].

These provisions all tended to consider cestuy que use as the real owner of the estate; and at length that idea was carried into full effect by the statute 27 Hen. VIII. c. 10. which is usually called the statute of uses, or, in conveyances and pleadings, the statute for transferring uses into possession. The hint seems to have been derived from what was done at the accession of king Richard III; who having, when duke of Glocester, been frequently made a feoffee to uses, would upon the assumption of the crown (as the law was then understood) have been intitled to hold the lands discharged of the use. But, to obviate so notorious an injustice, an act of parliament was immediately passed^[180], which ordained that, where he had been so infeoffed jointly with other persons, the land should vest in the other feoffees, as if he had never been named; and that, where he stood solely infeoffed, the estate itself should vest in cestuy que use in like manner as he had the use. And so the statute of Henry VIII, after reciting the various inconveniences before-mentioned and many others, enacts, that "when any person shall be seised of lands, &c. to the use, confidence, or trust, of any other person or body politic, the person or corporation intitled to the use in fee-simple, fee-tail, for life, or years, or otherwise, shall from thenceforth stand and be seised or possessed of the land, &c, of and in the like estates as they have in the use, trust, or confidence; and that the estate of the person so seised to uses shall be deemed to be in him or them that have the use, in such quality, manner, form, and condition, as they had before in the use." The statute thus executes the use, as our lawyers term it; that is, it conveys the possession to the use, and transfers the use into possession: thereby making cestuy que use complete owner of the lands and tenements, as well at law as in equity.

The statute having thus, not abolished the conveyance to uses, but only annihilated the intervening estate of the feoffee, and turned the interest of cestuy que use into a legal instead of an equitable ownership; the courts of common law began to take cognizance of uses, instead of sending the party to seek his relief in chancery. And, considering them now as merely a mode of conveyance, very many of the rules before established in equity were adopted with improvements by the judges of the common law. The same persons only were held capable of being seised to a use, the same considerations were necessary for raising it, and it could only be raised of the same hereditaments, as formerly. But as the statute, the instant it was raised, converted it into an actual possession of the land, a great number of the incidents, that formerly attended it in it's fiduciary state, were now at an end. The land could not escheat or be forfeited by the act or defect of the feoftee, nor be aliened to any purchasor discharged of the use, nor be liable to dower or curtesy on account of the seisin of such feoffee; because the legal estate never rests in him for a moment, but is instantaneously transferred to cestuy que use, as soon as the use is declared. And, as the use and the land were now convertible terms, they became liable to dower, curtesy, and escheat, in consequence of the seisin of cestuy que use, who was now become the terre-tenant also; and they likewise were no longer devisable by will.

The various necessities of mankind induced also the judges very soon to depart from the rigour and simplicity of the rule's of the common law, and to allow a more minute and complex construction upon conveyances to uses than upon others. Hence it was adjudged, that the use need not always be executed the instant the conveyance is made: but, if it cannot take effect at that time, the operation of the statute may wait till the use shall arise upon some future contingency, to happen within a reasonable period of time; and in the mean while the antient use shall remain in the original grantor: as, when lands are conveyed to the use of A and B, after a marriage shall be had between them^[181], or to the use of A and his heirs till B shall pay him a sum of money, and then to the use of B and his heirs^[182]. Which doctrine, when devises by will were again introduced, and considered as equivalent in point of construction to declarations of uses, was also adopted in favour of executory devises^[183]. But herein these, which are called contingent or springing, uses differ from an executory devise; in that there must be a person seised to such uses at the time when the contingency happens, else they can never be executed by the statute; and therefore, if the estate of the feoffee to such use be destroyed by alienation or otherwise, before the contingency arises, the use is destroyed for ever^[184]: whereas by an executory devise the freehold itself is transferred to the future devisee. And, in both these cases, a fee may be limited to take effect after a fee^[185], because, though that was forbidden by the common law in favour of the lord's escheat, yet, when the legal estate was not extended beyond one fee-simple, such subsequent uses (after a use in fee) were before the statute permitted to be limited in equity; and then the statute executed the legal estate in the same manner as the use before subsisted. It was also held that a use, though executed, may change from one to another by circumstances ex post facto^[186]; as, if A makes a feoffment to the use of his intended wife and her eldest son for their lives, upon the marriage the wife takes the whole use in severalty; and, upon the birth of a son, the use is executed jointly in them both^[187]. This is sometimes called a secondary, sometimes a shifting, use. And, whenever the use limited by the deed expires, or cannot vest, it returns back to him who raised it, after such expiration or during such impossibility, and is stiled a resulting use. As, if a man makes a feoffment to the use of his intended wife for life, with remainder to the use of her first-born son in tail: here, till he marries the use results back to himself; after marriage, it is executed in the wife for life; and, if she dies without issue, the whole results back to him in fee^[188]. It was likewise held, that the uses originally declared may be revoked at any future time, and new uses be declared of the land, provided the grantor reserved to himself such a power at the creation of the estate; whereas the utmost that the common law would allow, was a deed of defeazance coeval with the grant itself (and therefore esteemed a part of it) upon events specifically mentioned^[189]. And, in case of such a revocation, the old uses were held instantly to cease, and the new ones to become executed in their stead^[190]. And this was permitted, partly to indulge the convenience, and partly the caprice of mankind; who (as lord Bacon observes^[191]) have always affected to have the disposition of their property revocable in their own time, and irrevocable ever afterwards.

By this equitable train of decisions in the courts of law, the power of the court of chancery over landed property was greatly curtailed and diminished. But one or two technical scruples, which the judges found it hard to get over, restored it with tenfold increase. They held in the first place, that "no use could be limited on a use^[192]," and that when a man bargains and sells his land for money, which railes a use by implication to the bargainee, the limitation of a farther use to another person is repugnant and therefore void^[193]. And therefore, on a feoffment to A and his heirs, to the use of B and his heirs, in trust for C and his heirs, they held that the statute executed only the first use, and that the second was a mere nullity: not adverting, that the instant the first use was executed in B, he became seised to the use of C, which second use the statute might as well be permitted to execute as it did the first; and so the legal estate might be instantaneously transmitted down, through a hundred uses upon uses, till finally executed in the last cestuy que use. Again; as the statute mentions only such persons as were seised to the use of others, this was held not to extend to terms of years, or other chattel interests, whereof the termor is not seised, but only possessed^[194]; and therefore, if a term of one thousand years be limited to A, to the use of (or in trust for) B, the statute does not execute this use, but leaves it as at common law^[195]. And lastly, (by more modern resolutions) where lands are given to one and his heirs, in trust to receive and pay over the profits to another, this use is not executed by the statute: for the land must remain in the trustee to enable him to perform the trust^[196].

Of the two more antient distinctions the courts of equity quickly availed themselves. In the first case it was evident, that B was never intended by the parties to have any beneficial interest; and, in the second, the cestuy que use of the term was expressly driven into the court of chancery to seek his remedy: and therefore that court determined, that though these were not uses, which the statute could execute, yet still they were trusts in equity, which in conscience ought to be performed. To this the reason of mankind assented, and the doctrine of uses was revived, under the denomination of trusts: and thus, by this strict construction of the courts of law, a statute made upon great deliberation, and introduced in the most solemn manner, has had little other effect than to make a flight alteration in the formal words of a conveyance^[197].

However, the courts of equity, in the exercise of this new jurisdiction, have wisely avoided in a great degree those mischiefs which made uses intolerable. They now consider a trust-estate (either when expressly declared or resulting by necessary implication) as equivalent to the legal ownership, governed by the same rules of property, and liable to every charge in equity, which the other is subject to in law: and, by a long series of uniform determinations, for now near a century past, with some assistance from the legislature, they have raised a new system of rational jurisprudence, by which trusts are made to answer in general all the beneficial ends of uses, without their inconvenience or frauds. The trustee is considered as merely the instrument of conveyance, and can in no shape affect the estate, unless by alienation for a valuable consideration to a purchasor without notice^[198]; which, as cestuy que use is generally in possession of the land, is a thing that can rarely happen. The trust will descend, may be aliened, is liable to debts, to forfeiture, to leases and other incumbrances, nay even to the curtesy of the husband, as if it was an estate at law. It has not yet indeed been subjected to dower, more from a cautious adherence to some hasty precedents^[199], than from any well-grounded principle. It hath also been held not liable to escheat to the lord, in consequence of attainder or want of heirs^[200]: because the trust could never be intended for his benefit. But let us now return to the statute of uses.

The only service, as was before observed, to which this statute is now consigned, is in giving efficacy to certain new and secret species of conveyances; introduced in order to render transactions of this sort as private as possible, and to save the trouble of making livery of seisin, the only antient conveyance of corporeal freeholds: the security and notoriety of which public investiture abundantly overpaid the labour of going to the land, or of sending an attorney in one's stead. But this now his given way to

12. A twelfth species of conveyance, called a covenant to stand seised to uses: by which a man, seised of lands, covenants in consideration of blood or marriage that he will stand seised of the same to the use of his child, wife, or kinsman; for life, in tail, or in fee. Here the statute executes at once the estate; for the party intended to be benefited, having thus acquired the use, is thereby put at once into corporal possession of the land^[201], without ever seeing it, by a kind of parliamentary magic. But this conveyance can only operate, when made upon such weighty and interesting considerations as those of blood or marriage.

13. A thirteenth species of conveyance, introduced by this statute, is that of a bargain and sale of lands; which is a kind of a real contract, whereby the bargainor for some pecuniary consideration bargains and sells, that is, contracts to convey, the land to the bargainee; and becomes by such bargain a trustee for, or seised to the use of, the bargainee; and then the statute of uses completes the purchase^[202]: or, as it has been well expressed^[203], the bargain first vests the use, and then the statute vests the possession. But as it was foreseen that conveyances, thus made, would want all those benefits of notoriety, which the old common law assurances were calculated to give; to prevent therefore clandestine conveyances of freeholds, it was enacted in the same session of parliament by statute 27 Hen. VIII. c. 16. that such bargains and sales should not enure to pass a freehold, unless the same be made by indenture, and enrolled within six months in one of the courts of Westminster-hall or with the custos rotulorum of the county. Clandestine bargains and sales of chattel interests, or leases for years, were thought not worth regarding, as such interests were very precarious till about six years before^[204]; which also occasioned them to be overlooked in framing the statute of uses: and therefore such bargains and sales are not directed to be enrolled. But how impossible is it to foresee, and provide against, all the consequences of innovations! This omission has given rise to

14. A fourteenth specics of conveyance, viz. by lease and release; first invented by serjeant Moore, soon after the statute of uses, and now the most common of any, and therefore not to be shaken; though very great lawyers (as, particularly, Mr Noy) have formerly doubted it's validity^[205]. It is thus contrived. A lease, or rather bargain and sale, upon some pecuniary consideration, for one year, is made by the tenant of the freehold to the lessee or bargainee. Now this, without any enrollment, makes the bargainor stand seised to the use of the bargainee, and vests in the bargainee the use of the term for a year; and then the statute immediately annexes the possession. He therefore, being thus in possession, is capable of receiving a release of the freehold and reversion; which, we have seen before^[206], must be made to a tenant in possession: and accordingly, the next day, a release is granted to him^[207]. This is held to supply the place of livery of seisin; and so a conveyance by lease and release is said to amount to a feoffment^[208].

15. To these may be added deeds to lead or declare the uses of other more direct conveyances, as feoffments, fines, and recoveries; of which we shall speak in the next chapter: and,

16. Deeds of revocation of uses; hinted at in a former page^[209], and founded in a previous power, reserved at the raising of the uses^[210], to revoke such as were then declared; and to appoint others in their stead, which is incident to the power of revocation^[211]. And this may suffice for a specimen of conveyances founded upon the statute of uses; and will finish our observations upon such deeds as serve to transfer real property.

Before we conclude, it will not be improper to subjoin a few remarks upon such deeds as are used not to convey, but to charge or incumber, lands, and discharge them again: of which nature are, obligations or bonds, recognizances, and defeazances, upon them both.

1. An obligation, or bond, is a deed^[212] whereby the obligor obliges himself, his heirs, executors, and administrators, to pay a certain sum of money to another at a day appointed. If this be all, the bond is called a single one, simplex obligatio; but there is generally a condition added, that if the obligor does some particular act, the obligation shall be void, or else shall remain in full force: as, payment of rent; performance of covenants in a deed; or repayment of a principal sum of money borrowed of the obligee, with interest, which principal sum is usually one half of the penal sum specified in the bond. In case this condition is not performed, the bond becomes forfeited, or absolute at law, and charges the obligor while living; and after his death the obligation descends upon his heir, who (on defect of personal assets) is bound to discharge it, provided he has real assets by descent as a recompense. So that it may be called, though not a direct, yet a collateral, charge upon the lands. How it affects the personal property of the obligor, will be more properly considered hereafter.

If the condition of a bond be impossible at the time of making it, or be to do a thing contrary to some rule of law that is merely positive, or be uncertain, or insensible, the condition alone is void, and the bond shall stand single and unconditional: for it is the folly of the obligor to enter into such an obligation, from which he can never be released. If it be to do a thing that is malum in se, the obligation itself is void: for the whole is an unlawful contract, and the obligee shall take no advantage from such a transaction. And if the condition be possible at the time of making it, and afterwards becomes impossible by the act of God, the act of law, or the act of the obligee himself, there the penalty of the obligation is saved: for no prudence or foresight of the obligor could guard against such a contingency^[213]. On the forfeiture of a bond, or it's becoming single, the whole penalty was recoverable at law: but here the courts of equity interposed, and would not permit a man to take more than in conscience he ought; viz. his principal, interest, and expenses, in case the forfeiture accrued by non-payment of money borrowed; the damages sustained, upon non performance of covenants: and the like. And the statute 4 & 5 Ann. c. 16. hath also enacted, in the same spirit of equity, that in case of a bond, conditioned for the payment of money, the payment or tender of the principal sum due, with interest, and costs, even though the bond be forfeited and a suit commenced thereon, shall be a full satisfaction and discharge.

2. A recognizance is an obligation of record, which a man enters into before some court of record or magistrate duly authorized^[214], with condition to do some particular act; as to appear at the assises, to keep the peace, to pay a debt, or the like. It is in most respects like another bond; the difference being chiefly this; that the bond is the creation of a fresh debt or obligation de novo, the recognizance is an acknowlegement of a former debt, upon record; the form, whereof is, "that A. B. doth acknowlege to owe to our lord the king, to the plaintiff, to C. D. or the like, the sum of ten pounds," with condition to be void on performance of the thing stipulated: in which case the king, the plaintiff, C. D. &c, is called the cognizee, "is cui cognoscitur;" as he that enters into the recognizance is called the cognizor, "is qui cognoscit." This, being either certified to, or taken, by the officer of some court, is witnessed only by the record of that court, and not by the party's seal: so that it is not in strict propriety a deed, though the effects of it are greater than a common obligation; being allowed a priority in point of payment, and binding the lands of the cognizor, from the time of enrollment on record^[215]. There are also other recognizances, of a private kind, in nature of a statute staple, by virtue of the statute 23 Hen. VIII. c. 6. which have been already explained^[216], and shewn to be a charge upon real property.

3. A defeazance, on a bond, or recognizance, or judgment recovered, is a condition which, when performed, defeats or undoes it, in the same manner as a defeazance of an estate before-mentioned. It differs only from the common condition of a bond, in that the one is always inserted in the deed or bond itself, the other is made between the same parties by a separate and frequently a subsequent deed^[217]. This, like the condition of a bond, when performed, discharges and disincumbers the estate of the obligor.

These are the principal species of deeds or matter in pais, by which estates may be either conveyed, or at lead affected. Among which the conveyances to uses are by much the most frequent of any; though in these there is certainly one palpable defect, the want of sufficient notoriety: so that purchasors or creditors cannot know with any absolute certainty, what the estate, and the title to it, in reality are, upon which they are to lay out or to lend their money. In the antient feodal method of conveyance (by chiving corporal seisin of the lands) this notoriety was in some measure answered; but all the advantages resulting from thence are now totally defeated by the introduction of death-bed devises and secret conveyances: and there has never been yet any sufficient guard provided against fraudulent charges and incumbrances; since the disuse of the old Saxon custom of transacting all conveyances at the county court, and entering a memorial of them in the chartulary or leger-book of some adjacent monastery^[218]; and the failure of the general register established by king Richard the first, for mortgages made to Jews, in the capitula de Judaeis, of which Hoveden has preserved a copy. How far the establishment of a like general register, for deeds, and wills, and other acts affecting real property, would remedy this inconvenience, deserves to be well considered. In Scotland every act and event, regarding the transmission of property, is regularly entered on record^[219]. And some of our own provincial divisions, particularly the extended county of York, and the populous county of Middlesex, have prevailed with the legislature^[220] to erect such registers in their several districts. But, however plausible these provisions may appear in theory, it hath been doubted by very competent judges, whether more disputes have not arisen in those counties by the inattention and omissions of parties, than prevented by the use of registers.

---

1. Co. Litt. 171.
2. Plowd. 434.
3. Lyndew. l. 1. t. 10. c. 1.
4. Mirror. c. 2. §. 27.
5. Ibid. Litt. §. 371, 372.
6. Co. Litt. 35.
7. Stat. 13 Eliz. c. 8.
8. Stat. 27 Eliz. c. 4.
9. Stat. 13 Eliz. c. 5.
10. Perk. §. 533.
11. 3 Rep. 83.
12. Co. Litt. 229. F. N. B. 122.
13. Co. Litt. 225.
14. Ibid. 6.
15. See appendix, №. II. §. 2. pag. v.
16. Ibid.
17. Co. Litt. 21. 2 Roll. Rep. 19. 23. Cro. Jac. 476.
18. 2 Rep. 23. 8 Rep. 56.
19. Append. №. I. Madox. Formul. passim.
20. Append. №. II. §. 1. pag. iii.
21. See pag. 41.
22. Plowd. 13. 8 Rep. 71.
23. Append. №. I. pag. i.
24. Append. №. II. §. 2. pag. viii.
25. Ibid. №. I. pag. i.
26. Feud. l. 2. t. 8, & 25.
27. Co. Litt. 384.
28. Litt. §. 143.
29. Co. Litt. 174.
30. Ibid. 384.
31. Ibid.
32. Co. Litt. 102.
33. Litt. § 733.
34. Co. Litt. 373.
35. Litt. §. 703. 706,7 07.
36. Litt. §. 705. 707.
37. Ibid. §. 698. 702.
38. Co. Litt. 102.
39. Litt. §. 711, 712.
40. Co. Litt. 373.
41. Litt. §. 712. 2 Inst. 293.
42. pag. 116.
43. Co. Litt. 374. 2 Inst. 335.
44. Append. №. II. §. 2. pag. viii.
45. Ibid. pag xii.
46. Co. Litt. 46. Dyer. 28.
47. 2 Rep. 3, 9. 11 Rep. 27.
48. 1 Kings. c. 21. Daniel. c.6. Esther. c. 8.
49. "And I bought the field of Hanameel, and weighed him the money, even seventeen shekels of silver. And I subscribed the evidence, and sealed it, and took witnesses, and weighed him the money in the ballances. And I took the evidence of the purchase, both that which was sealed according to the law and custom, and also that which was open." c. 32.
50. Inst. 2. 10. 2 & 3.
51. 1 Inst. 7.
52. "Propria manu pro ignorantia literarum signum sanctae crucis expressi et subscripti." Seld. Jan. Angl. l. 1. §. 42. And this (acccording to Procopius) the emperor Justin in the east, and Theodoric king of the Goths in Italy, had before authorized by their example, on account of their inability to write.
53. Lamb. Archeion. 51.
54. "Normanni chirographorum confectionem, cum crucibus aureis, aliisque signaculis sacris, in Anglia firmari solitam, in caeram impressam mutant, modumque scribendi Anglicum rejiciunt." Ingulph.
55. 3 Lev. 1. Stra. 764.
56. Perk. §. 130.
57. Co. Litt. 36.
58. Feud. l. 1. t. 4.
59. Co. Litt. 7.
60. Feud. l. 2. t. 32.
61. Spelm. Gloss. 228. Madox. Formul. №. 221. 322. 660.
62. Co. Litt. 6.
63. 2 Inst. 77.
64. Madox. Formul. №. 515.
65. Ibid. Dissert. fol. 32.
66. 2 Inst. 78.
67. 11 Rep. 27.
68. 5 Rep. 23.
69. Toth. num°. 24. 1 Vern. 348.
70. Co. Litt. 9.
71. Ibid.
72. Wright. 21.
73. pag. 108.
74. Co. Litt. 42.
75. See Appendix. №. I.
76. Co. Litt. 9.
77. Litt. §. 66.
78. Wright. 37.
79. l. 3. c. 15. §. 5.
80. Nam apiscimur possessionem corpore et animo: neque per se corpore; neque per se animo. Non autem ita accipiendum est, ut qui fundum possidere velit, omnes glebas circumambulet; sed sufficit quamlibet partem ejus fundi introire. (Ff. 41. 2. 3.) And again: traditionibus dominia rerum, non nudis pactis, transferuntur. (Cod. 2. 3. 20.)
81. Decretal. l. 3. t. 4. c. 40.
82. See pag. 209. 227, 228.
83. Flet. l. 6. c. 2. §. 2.
84. ch. 4. v. 7.
85. Stiernhook. de jure Sueon. l. 2. c. 4.
86. Hickes. Dissert. epistolar. 85.
87. Co. Litt. 46.
88. See pag. 165.
89. pag. 167.
90. Co. Litt. 49.
91. Co. Litt. 48.
92. pag. 288.
93. Co. Litt. 48. West. Symb. 251.
94. Litt. §. 414.
95. Feud. l. 2. t. 58.
96. See pag. 307.
97. Gilb. Ten. 35.
98. Dyer. 18.
99. See appendix. №. I.
100. Litt. §. 421, &c.
101. Co. Litt. 48.
102. Ibid. 52.
103. West's Symbol. 256.
104. Litt. §. 59.
105. §. 57.
106. Co. Litt. 9.
107. Ibid. 172.
108. l. 2. c. 18.
109. Spelm. Gl. 229.
110. Co. Litt. 44.
111. Co. Litt. 44.
112. But now by the statute 5 Geo. III. c. 17. a lease of tithes or other incorporeal hereditaments, alone, may be granted by any bishop or ecclesiastical or eleemosynary corporation, and the successor shall be intitled to recover the rent by an action of debt, which (in case of a freehold lease) he could not have brought at the common law.
113. Co. Litt. 45.
114. 11 Rep. 71.
115. Co. Litt. 45.
116. Ibid. 44.
117. Ibid. 45.
118. Strype's annals of Eliz.
119. For the other learning relating to leases, which is very curious and diffusive, I must refer the student to 3 Bac. abridg. 295. (title leases and terms for years) where the subject is treated in a perspicuous and masterly manner; being supposed to be extracted from a manuscript of sir Geoffrey Gilbert.
120. Co. Litt. 50, 51.
121. Litt. §. 64, 65.
122. Co. Litt. 51.
123. Litt. §. 62.
124. Co. Litt. 50.
125. Perk. §. 288.
126. pag. 301.
127. Litt. §. 250. Co. Litt. 169.
128. Litt. §. 445.
129. Ibid. §. 465.
130. Ibid. §. 459.
131. Co. Litt. 273.
132. Ibid. 272, 273.
133. Litt. §. 466.
134. Ibid. §. 470.
135. Co. Litt. 278.
136. 1 Inst. 293.
137. Litt. §. 515. 531.
138. Ibid. §. 516.
139. Co. Litt. 337.
140. Ibid. 338.
141. Perk. §. 589.
142. Co. Litt. 50.
143. Litt. §. 460.
144. From the French verb defaire, infectum reddere.
145. Co. Litt. 236.
146. Ibid. 237.
147. Ff. 7. 1. 1.
148. Inst. 2. tit. 23.
149. Ff. 43. 26. 1. Bacon on uses. 8°. 306.
150. Plowd. 352.
151. Stat. 50 Edw. III. c. 6. 1 Ric. II. c. 9.
152. See pag. 271.
153. pag. 272.
154. on uses. 313.
155. Keilw. 42. Yearbook 22 Edw. IV. 6.
156. Keilw. 46. Bacon of uses. 312.
157. Bro. Abr. tit. Feoffm. al uses. 31. Bacon of uses. 346, 347.
158. Bro. Abr. tit. Feoffm. al uses. 40. Bacon. 347.
159. 1 Rep. 122.
160. 1 Jon. 127.
161. Cro. Eliz. 401.
162. See pag. 296.
163. 1 And. 37.
164. Moor. 684.
165. 2 Roll. Abr. 780.
166. Bacon of uses. 312.
167. Ibid. 308.
168. Stat. 1 Ric. III. c. 1.
169. Bro. Abr. ibid. 23.
170. Jenk. 190.
171. 4 Rep. 1. 2 And. 75.
172. See pag. 137.
173. Bro. Abr. tit. executions. 90.
174. Use of the law. 153.
175. Stat. 50 Edw. III. c. 6. 2 Ric. II. sess. 2. c. 3. 19 Hen. VII. c. 15.
176. Stat. 1 Ric. II. c. 9. 4 Hen. IV. c. 7. 11 Hen. VI. c. 3. 1 Hen. VII. c. 1.
177. Stat. 11 Hen. VI. c. 5.
178. Stat. 1 Ric. III. c. 1.
179. Stat. 4 Hen. VII. c. 17. 19 Hen. VII. c. 15.
180. 1 Ric. III. c. 5.
181. 2 Roll. Abr. 791. Cro. Eliz. 439.
182. Bro. Abr. tit. Feoff. al uses. 30.
183. See pag. 173.
184. 1 Rep. 134. 138. Cro. Eliz. 439.
185. Pollexf. 78. 10 Mod. 423.
186. Bro. Abr. tit. Feoffm. al uses. 30.
187. Bacon of uses. 351.
188. Ibid. 350. 1 Rep. 120.
189. See pag. 327.
190. Co. Litt. 237.
191. on uses. 316.
192. Dyer. 155.
193. 1 And. 37. 136.
194. Bacon law of uses. 335. Jenk. 244.
195. Poph. 76. Dyer. 369.
196. 1 Equ. Cas. abr. 383, 384.
197. Vaugh. 50. Atk. 591.
198. 2 Freem. 43.
199. 1 Chanc. Rep. 254. 2 P. W^ms. 640.
200. Hardr. 494. Burgess and Wheate, Hil. 32 Geo. II. in Canc.
201. Bacon. Use of the law. 151.
202. Ibid. 150.
203. Cro. Jac. 696.
204. See pag. 142.
205. 2 Mod. 252.
206. pag. 324.
207. See appendix. №. II. §. 1, 2.
208. Co. Litt. 270. Cro. Jac. 604.
209. pag. 335.
210. See appendix. №. II. pag. xi.
211. Co. Litt. 237.
212. See appendix. №. III. pag. xiii.
213. Co. Litt. 206.
214. Bro. Abr. tit. recognizance. 24.
215. Stat. 29 Car. II. c. 3. §. 18.
216. See pag. 160.
217. Co. Litt. 237. 2 Saund. 47.
218. Hickes Dissertat. epistolar. 9.
219. Dalrymple on feodal property. 262, &c.
220. Stat. 2 & 3 Ann. c. 4. 6 Ann. c. 35. 7 Ann. c. 20. 8 Geo. II. c. 6.