selves were bound to attend the king upon summons, to hear causes of greater consequence in the king's presence, and under the direction of his grand justiciary. The military branch of service consisted in attending the lords to the wars, if called upon, with such a retinue, and for such a number of days, as were stipulated at the first donation, in proportion to the quantity of the land.

At the first introduction of feuds, as they were gratuitous, so also they were precarious, and held at the will of the lord, who was then the sole judge whether his vassal performed his services faithfully. Then they became certain for one or more years, and finally began to be granted for the life of the feudatory. For a long time, however, they were not hereditary, though frequently granted, by the favour of the lord, to the children of the former possessor; till in process of time it became unusual and was therefore thought hard to reject the heir, if he were capable to perform the services; and, therefore, infants, women, and professed monks, who were incapable of bearing arms, were also incapable of succeeding to a genuine feud. But the heir, when admitted to the feud which his ancestor possessed, used generally to pay a fine or acknowledgment to the lord, in horses, arms, and the like, for such renewal of the feud, which was called a relief, because it raised up and re-established the inheritance; or, in the words of the feudal writers, "incertam et caducam hereditatem "relevabat." This relief was afterwards, when feuds became abso→ lutely hereditary, continued on the death of the tenant, though the original foundation of it had ceased.

Other qualities of feuds were, that the feudatory could not alien or dispose of his feud; neither could he exchange, nor yet mortgage, nor even devise it by will, without the consent of the lord. For the reason of conferring the feud being the personal abilities of the feudatory, it was not fit he should be at liberty to transfer this gift to another who might prove less able; and as the feudal obligation was reciprocal, the feudatory being entitled to the lord's protection, the lord could not, on the other hand, transfer his seignory without consent of his vassal.

These were the principal, and very simple, qualities of the original feuds, which were all of a military nature, though the feudatories being unable to cultivate 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 origin of rents, and by these means the feudal polity was greatly extended; these inferior feudatories being under similar obligations of fealty, to do suit of court, to pay the stipulated rent-service, and to promote the welfare of their imme

diate 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 began 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. Hence these tenures began now to be divided into feoda propria et impropria, proper and improper feuds; under the former of which divisions were comprehended such, and such only, of which we have before spoken; and under that of improper or derivative feuds were comprised all such as did not fall within the other description; such, for instance, as were originally sold to the feudatory for a price; such as were held upon less honourable services, or for rent, in lieu of military service; such as were in themselves alienable, without mutual license; and such as might descend indifferently either to males or females.

This introduces us naturally to a consideration of the ancient English tenures, all the particularities attending which are to be accounted for upon feudal principles, and no other; being fruits of, and deduced from, the feudal policy. For there seem to have subsisted among our ancestors 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 that were due to the lords from their tenants. These 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, or other mean employments. The certain ser→ vices, 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 seventeenth century, and three of which subsist to this day.

1. The first, most universal, and esteemed the most honourable

species of tenure, was that by knight-service, which differed in very few points from a proper feud. To make this, a determinate quantity of land was necessary, which was called a knight's fee, the value of which, though it varied with the times, in the reigns of Edward I. and Edward II., was stated at 207. per annum, and the tenant was bound to attend his lord to the wars for forty days in every year, if called upon.

But this tenure drew after it seven fruits and consequences, as inseparably incident to the tenure in chivalry: viz., aids, relief, primer seisin, wardship, marriage, fines for alienation, and escheat.

Aids, which originally were benevolences granted by the tenant to his lord, in times of difficulty, but in time grew to be considered a matter of right, were principally three: first, to ransom the lord's person, if taken prisoner; secondly, to make the lord's eldest son a knight, a matter formerly attended with great ceremony and expense; and thirdly, to marry the lord's eldest daughter, by giving her a suitable portion; for daughters' portions were in those days extremely slender, and the lords, by the nature of their tenure, could not charge their lands with this or any other incumbrance.

Relief, relevium, was the fine incident to every feudal tenure, by way of composition with the lord for taking up the estate, which had lapsed or fallen in by the death of the last tenant; and which, by an ordinance in 27 Hen. II., called the assize of arms, was fixed at 100s. for every knight's fee.

Primer seisin was only incident to the king's tenants in capite, by a right which the king had, when any of his tenants died seised of a knight's fee, to receive of the heir a year's profits of the lands. This afterwards gave a handle to the popes, who claimed to be feudal lords of the church, to claim in like manner from every clergyman in England the first year's profits of his benefice, by way of primitiae, or first fruits.

These two payments, relief and primer seisin, were only due if the heir was of full age; but if he was under age the lord was entitled to the wardship of the heir, and was called the guardian in chivalry. This consisted in having the custody of his body and lands, without any accoun. of the profits, till the age of twenty-one in males and sixteen in females. For the law supposed the heir-male unable to perform knight-service till twenty-one; but as for the female, she was supposed capable at fourteen to marry, and then her husband might perform the service.

When the heir came of full age, provided he held a knight's fee, he was to receive the order of knighthood, and was compellable to take it upon him, or else pay a fine to the king. This prerogative

was exerted as an expedient for raising money by many of our best princes, but yet was the occasion of heavy murmurs when exerted by Charles I. It was accordingly abolished by statute 16 Car. I. c. 20.

But, before they came of age, the guardian had authority over his infant wards, in respect of their marriage, having the power of tendering him or her a suitable match, without disparagement or inequality; which if the infants refused, they forfeited the value of the marriage, valorem maritagii, to their guardian; and if the infants married themselves without the guardian's consent, they forfeited double the value, duplicem valorem maritagii. This seems to have been one of the greatest hardships of our ancient tenures; and one cannot read without astonishment, that such should have continued to be the condition of this country till the year 1660; which, from the extermination of these feudal oppressions, ought to be regarded as a memorable era in the history of our law and liberty.

Another attendant of tenure by knight-service was that of fines due to the lord for every alienation. This depended on the feudal connection; it not being allowed that a feudatory should substitute a new tenant in his own stead, without the consent of the lord: and, as the feudal obligation was reciprocal, the lord also could not alienate his seignory without the consent of his tenant, which consent was called an attornment, This restraint upon the lords soon wore away; that upon the tenants continued longer, For, when everything came in process of time to be bought and sold, the lords would not grant a license to their tenant, to alien, without a fine being paid; apprehending that, if it was reasonable for the heir to pay a fine or relief on the renovation of his paternal estate, it was much more reasonable that a stranger should make the same acknowledgment on his admission to a newly-purchased feud.

The last consequence of tenure in chivalry was escheat; which took place if the tenant died without heirs of his blood, or if his blood was corrupted by commission of treason or felony. In such cases the land escheated or fell back to the lord; that is, the tenure was determined by breach of the original condition of the feudal donation. In the one case, there were no heirs of the blood of the first feudatory, to which heirs alone the grant of the feud extended; in the other, the tenant, by perpetrating an atrocious crime, forfeited his feud, which he held under the implied condition that he should not be a traitor or a felon.

These were the principal qualities, fruits, and consequences of the tenure by knight-service: of which there were some other species, such as the tenure by grand serjeanty, per magnum servitium, whereby the tenant was bound, instead of serving the king generally

in his wars, to do some special honorary service to the king in person; as to carry his banner, his sword, or the like; or to be his butler, champion, or other officer, at his coronation. Tenure by cornage, which was to wind a horn when the Scots or other enemies entered the land, in order to warn the king's subjects, was a species of grand serjeanty.

The personal attendance in knight-service growing inconvenient, the tenants found means of compounding for it; first, by sending others in their stead, and in process of time making a pecuniary satisfaction in lieu of it. This pecuniary satisfaction at last came to be levied by assessments, at so much for every knight's fee; and was called scutagium, or, in our Norman French, escuage. The first time this appears to have been taken was in the 5 Hen. II., for his expedition to Toulouse; but it soon came to be so universal, that personal attendance fell quite into disuse. Our kings, when they went to war, levied scutages on all the landholders of the kingdom, to defray their expenses, and to hire troops. Which prerogative being greatly abused, it became matter of national clamour; and King John was obliged to consent by his Magna Charta, that no scutage should be imposed without consent of parliament; and such scutages became, as we have already seen, the groundwork of all succeeding subsidies, and the land-tax of later times.

Knight-service thus degenerating into assessment, all the advantages of the feudal constitution were destroyed, and nothing but the hardships remained. Instead of forming a national militia composed of barons, knights, and gentlemen, the whole system now tended to nothing else but a wretched means of raising money to pay an army of mercenaries. The families of all our nobility and gentry groaned under the intolerable burdens which were introduced and laid upon them by the subtlety of the Norman lawyers. For, besides the scutages to which they were liable, they might be called upon for aids, whenever the eldest son of the lord was to be knighted or his eldest daughter married. The heir, on the death of his ancestor, was plundered of the first emoluments of his inheritance, by way of relief and primer seisin; and if a minor, he found, after he was out of wardship, his woods decayed, houses fallen down, stock wasted and gone, lands ploughed to be barren; and yet to reduce him still further, he had to pay half-a-year's profits as a fine for suing out his ouster le main, or livery; that is, the delivery of his lands from his guardian's hands; and also the price or value of his marriage, if he refused such wife as his lord and guardian had bartered for, and imposed upon him; or twice that value if he married another woman. Add to this, the untimely and expensive honour of knighthood, to make his poverty more completely splendid. And when by