bourhood; who, in case of a disputed title, were afterwards called upon to decide the difference, not only according to external proofs, adduced by the parties litigant, but also by the internal testimony of their own private knowledge.

Besides an oath of fealty, or profession of faith to the lord, which was the parent of our oath of allegiance, the vassal or tenant upon investiture did usually homage to his lord; openly and humbly kneeling, being ungirt, uncovered, and holding up his hands both together between those of the lord, who sat before him; and there professing that "he did become his man, from that day forth, of life and limb and earthly honour:" and then he received a kiss from his lord.

The lord was, in early times, the legislator and judge over all his feudatories: and therefore the vassals of the inferior lords were bound by their fealty to attend their domestic courts baron (which were instituted in every manor or barony, for doing speedy and effectual justice to all the tenants) in order as well to answer such complaints as might be alleged against themselves, as to form a jury or homage for the trial of their fellow-tenants; and upon this account, in all the feudal institutions both here and on the continent, they are distinguished by the appellation of the peers of the court; pares curtis, or pares curiae.

These were the principal, and very simple, qualities of the genuine or original feuds; being then all of a military nature, and in the hands of military persons: though the feudatories, being under

frequent incapacities of cultivating and manuring their own lands, soon found it necessary to commit part of them to inferior tenants; obliging them to such returns in service, corn, cattle, or money, as might enable the chief feudatories to attend their military duties without distraction: which returns, or reditus, were the original of rents. And by this means the feudal polity was greatly extended; these inferior feudatories (who held what are called in the Scots law "rere-fiefs ") being under similar obligations of fealty, to do suit of court, to answer the stipulated renders or rent service, and to promote the welfare of their immediate superiors or lords. But this at the same time demolished the ancient simplicity of feuds; and an inroad being once made upon their constitution, it subjected them, in a course of time, to great varieties and innovations. Feuds came to be bought and sold, and deviations were made from the old fundamental rules of tenure and succession; which were held no longer sacred, when the feuds themselves no longer continued to be purely military.

But as soon as the feudal system came to be considered in the light of a civil establishment, rather than as a military plan, the ingenuity of the same ages, which perplexed all theology with the subtilty of scholastic disquisitions, and bewildered philosophy in the mazes of metaphysical jargon, began also to exert its influence on this copious and fruitful subject: in pursuance of which, the most refined and oppressive consequences were drawn from what originally was a plan of simplicity

and liberty, equally beneficial to both lord and tenant, and prudently calculated for their mutual protection and defence. From this one foundation, in different countries of Europe, very different superstructures have been raised: what effect it has produced on the landed property of England will appear in the following chapters.

CHAPTER V.

OF THE ANCIENT ENGLISH TENURES.

In this chapter we shall take a short view of the ancient tenures of our English estates, or the manner in which lands, tenements, and hereditaments might have been holden; as the same stood in force, till the middle of the last century. In which we shall easily perceive, that all the particularities, all the seeming and real hardships, that attended those tenures, were to be accounted for upon feudal principles and no other; being fruits of, and deduced from, the feudal policy.

All tenures being thus derived, or supposed to be derived from the king, those that held immediately under him, in right of his crown and dignity, were called his tenants in capite, or in chief; which was the most honourable species of tenure, but at the same time subjected the tenants to greater and more burthensome services, than inferior tenures did.

There seem to have subsisted among our ances

tors four principal species of lay tenures, to which all others may be reduced: the grand criteria of which were the natures of the several services or renders, that were due to the lords from their tenants. The services, in respect of their quality, were either free or base services; in respect of their quantity and the time of exacting them, were either certain or uncertain. Free services were such as were not unbecoming the character of a soldier, or a freeman, to perform; as to serve under his lord. in the wars, to pay a sum of money, and the like. Base services were such as were fit only for peasants, or persons of a servile rank; as to plough the lord's land, to make his hedges, to carry out his dung, or other mean employments. The certain services, whether free or base, were such as were stinted in quantity, and could not be exceeded on any pretence; as, to pay a stated annual rent, or to plough such a field for three days. The uncertain depended upon unknown contingencies: as, to do military service in person, or pay an assessment in lieu of it, when called upon; or to wind a horn whenever the Scots invaded the realm; which are free services; or to do whatever the lord should command; which is a base or villein service.

From the various combinations of these services have arisen the four kinds of lay tenure which subsisted in England, till the middle of the last century; and three of which subsist to this day. First, where the service was free, but uncertain as military service with homage, that tenure was

called the tenure in chivalry, per servitium militare, or by knight service. Secondly, where the service was not only free, but also certain, as by fealty only, by rent and fealty, &c. that tenure was called liberum socagium, or free socage. These were the only free holdings or tenements; the others were villenous or servile: as, thirdly, where the service was base in its nature, and uncertain as to time and quantity, the tenure was purum villenagium, absolute or pure villenage. Lastly, where the service was base in its nature, but reduced to a certainty, this was still villenage, but distinguished from the other by the name of privileged villenage, villenagium privilegiatum; or it might be still called socage (from the certainty of its services) but degraded by their baseness into the inferior title of villenagium socagium, villein-socage.

I. The first, most universal, and esteemed the most honourable species of tenure, was that by knight-service, called in Latin servitium militare, and in law-French chivalry, or service de chivaler, answering to the fief d'haubert of the Normans, which name is expressly given it by the mirrour. This differed in very few points, as we shall presently see, from a pure and proper feud, being entirely military, and the general effect of the feudal establishment in England. To make a tenure by knight-service, a determinate quantity of land was necessary, which was called a knight's fee, feodum militare; the value of which, not only in the reign of Edward I. but also of Henry II. and therefore probably at its original in the reign of the con