OUTLINE OF CONVEYANCING.

Of Modern Tenures.

On the abolition of military tenures in the reign of Charles II., all tenures were turned into free and common socage, save only tenures in frankalmoign and copyholds.

Tenure in socage is a tenure by any free and certain service, and comprises grand and petit serjeanty, burgage, ancient demesne, and gavelkind. Grand serjeanty is where a man holds lands of the king by honorary services, to be performed in person, as to carry the king's banner, or his sword at the coronation. The honorary services of grand serjeanty are expressly reserved by the statute abolishing military tenures. Petit serjeanty is where a man holds lands of the king to yield to him yearly a bow, a sword, or other thing belonging to war. Tenure in burgage is where one holds tenements in an ancient borough of which the king or other person is lord, to pay to him a certain rent. The customs of this tenure are known by the name of Borough English, and one of the most remarkable of them is, that the youngest and not the eldest succeeds to the burgage tenement on the death of his father. Tenure in ancient demesne is confined to lands held in socage of those manors that were formerly in the possession of the crown by the services of cultivating the demesnes of such manors, or by a render of provisions. Lands of gavelkind tenure (which mostly prevails in Kent) descend to all the sons equally as co-parceners; in default of sons to daughters; and in default of lineal descendants upon collaterals in like

manner. They do not escheat upon conviction or execution for felony; and a minor of the age of 15 years seised in possession may by feoffment alienate absolutely.

Tenure in copyholds is derived from tenure in villenage which was when the services were base and uncertain. The tenants hold by copy of court roll or admission as common copyholders at the will of the lord, or as free copyholders, or customary freeholders, according to the custom of the manor.

Tenure in frankalmoign is where a religious corporation holds lands to them and their successors for ever, on condition of performing religious services. By this tenure the parochial clergy hold their lands.

The nature of Real Property.

Real property consists of land, and of all rights and profits arising from and annexed to land that are of a permanent and immoveable nature, and is usually comprehended under the words lands, tenements, and hereditaments. Land means any ground whatever, and includes everything above and below the surface, except gold and silver mines which, by royal prerogative, belong to the crown. Tenement is a word of still greater import, signifying anything which may be holden by a tenure. Hereditament is the largest and most comprehensive word, including not only lands and tenements, but whatever may be inherited.

Real property is either corporeal or incorporeal. Corporeal property consists wholly of substantial and permanent subjects all of which may be comprehended under the general denomination of land. Chattels,

such as deer in a park, fishes in a pond, rabbits in a warren, doves in a dove house, charters, court rolls, deeds, and other evidences of the land, together with the chests and boxes in which they are contained, all which are usually annexed to the inheritance and descendible to the heirs, are called heir looms.

Incorporeal property consists of rights and profits

arising from and annexed to lands, such as advowsons, rents, offices exercisable within certain places, though not annexed to land, and dignities or titles of honor having been originally annexed to land.

Quantity of Estates.

As all lands are considered to be held mediately or immediately from the queen, the interest which the tenant has in land is called an estate. The first general division of estates is into such as are freehold, or less than freehold. An estate of freehold is an interest in lands, or other real property held by a free tenure for the life of the tenant or that of some other person, or for a period of legal indeterminate duration. An estate for a man's own life is considered greater than an estate for the life of some other person. Estates of freehold are either of inheritance or not of inheritance. Estates freehold of inheritance are either in fee simple, conditional, or base fees. Estates freehold, not of inheritance comprise estates for life, which are either by act of party or by operation of law, such as an estate tail after possibility of issue extinct, and estates by curtesy, in dower, and in jointure. An estate to A. for 99 years, if he so long live, is, however not an estate of freehold, but one less than freehold, as the duration (99 years) is definitively fixed.

Estates less than freehold comprise estates for years, from year to year, at will, and on sufferance.

Estates in fee simple.

An estate in fee simple or an inheritance absolute, is where one has lands or tenements to hold to him and his heirs for ever. There is no greater estate than an estate in fee simple. The incidents of an estate in fee simple are the power of alienation, either of the whole fee or any smaller interest, its descendible quality to heirs general, its liability to curtesy and dower, and to debts by specialty and simple contract,

as well as to Crown debts. To create an estate in fee simple by will, any words showing an intention to pass the whole interest or fee will be sufficient. In a deed however, except in conveyances to corporations, the word heirs is in general essential to create an estate in fee simple.

An estate limited to a person and his heirs, with a qualification annexed to it by which it is provided, that it must determine whenever that qualification is at an end, is called a qualified or base fee. Thus on a grant to A. and his heirs, tenants of the manor of Dale, whenever the heirs of A. cease to be tenants of that manor, the estate determines.

Estates Tail.

A conditional fee, at the common law, was a fee limited to some particular heirs of the donee, exclusive of others; as to the heirs of a man's body, thus excluding collaterals. It was called a conditional fee, from the condition by which it was subject, that, if the donee died without such particular heirs, the land should revert to the donor. On the birth of issue the estate became alienable, subject to forfeiture for treason, and could be charged with incumbrances, so as to bind his issue.

This mode of construing conditional fees, completely frustrated the purpose for which these estates were intended, and in order to perpetuate their possession the statute de Donis Conditionalibus (13 Edward I. c. 1) was passed. The statute after reciting the right of alienation assumed by the donees of conditional fees, enacts "that the will of the giver according to the form in the deed of gift, manifestly expressed should be observed, so that they to whom a tenement was so given under condition, should not have power to alien the same tenement, whereby it should not remain after the death of the donees, to their issue or to the donor or his heir if issue failed." The construction of this sort of conditional fee was that it

vests an estate of inheritance in the donee, and some particular heirs of his to whom it must descend, notwithstanding any act of the ancestor, and that the estate of the donor is a reversion expectant on the determination of that estate.

An estate tail may therefore be described as an inheritance deriving its existence from the statute de Donis Conditionalibus, and descendible to some particular heirs only of the person to whom it is granted, and not to his heirs general. Estates tail are either in tail general or in tail special. An estate in tail general is one to a man and the heirs of his body. An estate in tail special is one to a man and the heirs of his body by a particular wife. Estate tail are also in tail male, as to a man and the heirs male of his body, or tail female as to a man and the heirs female of his body.

A gift in frank-marriage is an absolute mode of creating an estate tail, as where tenements are given by one man to another, together with a wife, who is the daughter or cousin of the donor, to hold in frankmarriage, by which expression the donees shall have the tenements to them and the heirs of their bodies; that is, they are tenants in special tail, and restrained from alienation by the statute De Donis Conditionalibus.

"Tenements" is the only word used in the statute; but this word includes not only all corporeal hereditaments, but also incorporeal hereditaments which relate to or arise out of land as commons, rents, and annuities, if charged on land. Offices relating to land, an equity of redemption, money to be laid out in land and dignities, may be also entailed; but estates pur autre vie, and chattels real and personal are not entailable within the statute. Estates pur autre vie may, however, be devised and limited in strict settlement, by way of remainder, like estates of inheritance so as to answer the purposes of an entail; and terms for years and personal chattels may also be settled for a like purpose by executory devise, or by deed of trust,