many sons and dieth, the youngest son shall inherit all the tenements which were his father's within the same borough as heir unto his father by force of the custom the which is called borough English. By the statute 12 Car. II. c. 24, tenures in chivalry, with all their peculiar incidents, were abolished and turned into 'free and common socage2.'

When land was held of the king not by military service, but under the obligation to render some small thing 'belonging to war,' as, for instance, to 'yield to him yearly a bow, or a sword, or a dagger, or a knife, or a pair of gilt spurs, or an arrow or divers arrows,' this was called tenure by petit serjeanty 3.

Tenants of land holding by any one of the above-mentioned tenures-libera eleemosyna or frankalmoign, grand serjeanty, knight-service, socage, burgage, and petit serjeanty—were regarded as free holders having an estate or interest in lands worthy of a freeman, and involving no service derogatory to the status of freedom. Some time before the reign of Henry II, but apparently not so early as Domesday, the expression liberum tenementum was introduced to designate land held by a freeman by a free tenure. Thus freehold tenure is the sum of the rights and duties which constitute the relation of a free tenant to his lord. The mode of granting or conveying liberum tenementum was by the process called a feoffment (feoffari, feoffamentum). The grantor is called the feoffor, the grantee the feoffee. Whether or not any formal mode of giving possession of the land granted by the delivery of a clod or some other similar act thereupon had been common among the AngloSaxons, is doubtful; but by the time of Henry II we find the two essential elements of a conveyance of a freehold interest in lands were (1) formal delivery of possession (technically called

1 Littleton, sec. 165. It is characteristic of the history of the growth of tenure that in Domesday (if the index is correct) we hear of different classes of tenants, but not of different species of tenure; of liberi homines, but not of liberum tenementum; of milites, but not of tenure per militiam; of socmanni, but not of socagium; of villani, but not of villenagium.

2 See Chap. IX. 3 Littleton, sec. 159.

E

livery of seisin 1); (2) words accompanying, indicating the nature and extent of the grantee's interest and the services to be rendered for it. by churter & foot

A

Besides the lands of the manor held by free or freehold tenants, the lord retained in his own hands the domain-terrae dominicales-portions of which were sometimes let to farmers, and portions cultivated by persons bound to render agricultural services for the benefit of the lord. The Domesday of St. Paul's leaves little doubt that there were frequently, especially upon ecclesiastical lands, farmers holding land under conventions or covenants, and rendering for it rent in kind or money. These would probably differ from the tenants in socage, for they would not be bound to the lord by homage or fealty; they would simply hold under the covenant or lease. Specimens of these leases are given in the Domesday of St. Paul's; they are usually for the life of the tenant. The convention was merely binding as between the tenant and the lord, it created no estate as between the tenant and third persons. In later times a lease of land for life becomes a freehold interest held by socage or other tenure; a lease for years becomes a new species of rights over land, called leasehold interests or chattels real.

Of the non-free inhabitants three principal classes are mentioned in Domesday—the villani, the servi, and the class which includes the persons called cotarii, cotsetlae, bordarii. It was by the forced service of these three classes that the domains of the lord, that is, the land not held of him by freemen rendering free services, or by farmers, was cultivated. The most important of these are the villani. They were adscripti glebae, tied to the

1 The proper meaning of the word 'seisin' is possession as of freehold ; i.e. the possession which a freeholder has.

2 See the specimen of a charter of feoffment of the time of Henry II given below, p. 62.

3 If the lord retained no lands in his own hands, but all the lands within the manor were held by free tenants, he was said to have a seignory, or a seignory in gross.

* See the title of the Ely Domesday (Stubbs, Select Charters, p. 83), where

land; they could not remove from one manor to another. They seem to have held plots of land of considerable extent, and the very fact of their not being removable, of son succeeding father in the occupation of his plot, and in the obligation to render services, no doubt gave rise to various customs, such as allowing the villein's eldest or youngest son, or all his sons in equal shares, to succeed to the father's beneficial interests (usually on making some payment to the lord), recognising estates of inheritance, for life, or years, allowing the villein to feed his cattle on the waste, and the like. These customs virtually gave the villein rights and duties in relation to his lord, and, as will be seen, grew into local laws. If the villein could not depart from the land, no more could the lord remove him so long as he rendered the service due to the lord1. That these villeins were a large and important class Domesday everywhere bears witness. There would be little distinction between the lowest class of freemen and the highest class of villeins: the one would gradually pass into the other. Freemen sometimes held lands by villein services.

The servi were mere slaves, who were sold and transferred from one lord to another without being attached to any land. In later legal language they are styled villeins in gross, as opposed to villeins attached to the land, who are called villeins regardant.

it is provided that the inquiry should be based on the oaths of (amongst others) six villani from every villa. The villeins on the manors in the king's hands at the time of the Survey appear to have usually enjoyed or acquired some peculiar privileges. In later times the copyhold tenants on these manors were called tenants in ancient demesne. See Blackstone, ii. p. 99.

1 'Cil qui custiuent la terre ne deit lum trauailer se de leur droite cense, noun le leist a seignurage de partir les cultiueurs de lur terre pur tant cum il pussent le dreit servise faire.' Those who cultivate the land ought not to be harassed beyond their proper fixed amount; nor is it lawful for the lords to remove the cultivators from the land so long as they are able to render the due service.'-Laws of William the Conqueror, xxix; Thorpe's Ancient Laws and Institutes, p. 480. See also laws xxx, xxxi.

1

The cotarii, cotsetlae, or bordarii, were cottagers holding small plots of land. This class were also bound to render compulsory services, and were no doubt before long confounded with the villani. This relation of the villeins or non-free inhabitants to the land gradually passes into an interest recognised by custom under the name of villenagium, and finally into a tenure protected by law under the name of copyhold or customary tenure 2.

Such were the various phases of the relation of lord and tenant which took root in the interval between the Conquest and the reign of Henry II. It remains to notice what has from the date of the complete constitution of manors been their most important characteristic-the manorial courts. When a large district comprising several manors was held by a single lord in whom was vested by grant or long usage the complete jurisdiction of the hundred, the district was called a liberty or honour. In such a case there might be, and usually was, only one court held for the whole; but that court was regarded as the court of each several manor. The honour is merely the aggregate of several manors, it has no distinct or separate organisation. It is therefore only necessary to inquire into the constitution and nature of the manor courts.

The principal manorial court is the Court Baron, or the assembly of the freehold tenants of the lord. Besides the Court Baron, in many manors there is also a Court Leet, which is sometimes held with the Court Baron; and wherever, as is usually the case at the present day, there are copyholders within the manor, there is also a third court, called the Customary Court. This court too is often held with a Court Baron.

1 See above, p. 25, note.

2 As to the condition of the non-free classes after the Conquest, see Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. pp. 426–431.

3 See Assize of Clarendon, c. 9; Carta, c. 43; ib. p. 293.

5 Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. p. 400.

6

Stubbs, Select Charters, 138; Magna * Scriven on Copyholds, i. p. 5. See Chap. V. § 6.

'A court baron,' says Sir Edward Coke, 'is the chief prop and pillar of a manor, which no sooner faileth, but the manor falleth to the ground'.' The same passage gives Coke's view of the history of these courts: 'For when the ancient kings of this realm, who had all the lands of England in demesne, did confer great quantities of land upon some great personages, with liberty to parcel the land out to other inferior tenants, reserving such duties and services as they thought convenient, and to keep courts where they might redress misdemeanors within their precincts, punish offences committed by their tenants, and decide and debate controversies arising within their jurisdiction; these courts were termed court barons.'

Thus, according to the older explanation, the manor courts, like the manor itself, resulted originally from a grant by the crown. Probably, however, though a grant may in fact in many cases have added to the powers and jurisdiction of the manorial courts, the court baron is primarily the successor of the ancient assembly of the village or township. When the district in which the township is situated comes under the power of a great man by express grant or otherwise, the court of the township becomes the court of the great man. It has been seen that it was common to acquire exemptions for particular districts from the court of the hundred, and this must have become almost universal, except in cases where, as seems to have sometimes happened, the hundred court itself came to be amalgamated with the court of some great lord 2. Thus either by the creation of a franchise exempt from the jurisdiction of the hundred court, or by the amalgamation of the hundred with the manorial courts, the jurisdiction civil and criminal exercised by the court of the hundred comes to be exercised in the manorial courts. The court baron exercised civil jurisdiction especially in matters relating to the freehold lands within the manor3. Criminal jurisdiction was amongst the 2 Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. p. 400. 3 See below, Chap. II. § 2.

1 Coke's Copyholder, xxxi.