estate for life, whilst the family, as a whole, had that kind of interest from which our present estate tail is derived.

As the tribe grew in importance and became a nation, certain families (those usually who formed the original stock) acquired higher rank than the others; the head of the most important of these became, with varying title, chief of the State, whilst the principal members of the others composed his council. The Distribution of whole of the public land was vested in the chief as representing the State, and he, when a fresh tract of country was acquired, by conquest or otherwise, would retain some of it for his own use, and distribute part of the remainder amongst the principal leaders of the people.

Every great man, in those days, had a certain number of military retainers of his own, and when he received a grant of public land, it was invariably upon condition of his performing military service for the State, whenever required, not only in person, but accompanied also by a certain number of his armed followers.

land.

The land which was distributed in the manner above described was at first held merely during the pleasure of the King or Chieftain, and was then called a Munus or gift; later on it was held for some Munus. definite period, and subsequently for the life of the holder, and it then became known, first as a Beneficium Benefice. or benefice, and afterwards as a Feudum or fee (b). Fee.

The result of a fee being held for life only was that on the death of the tenant it reverted to the sovereign, and was liable to be granted out afresh. If, however, when the feudatory died, he left an heir Fees become capable of performing military service, the fee would

(b) Wright, Ten. 19.

hereditary.

Vassal.

usually be regranted to the heir, to be held by him
on the same terms as his ancestor.
And in process

of time the heir became entitled to succeed to his
ancestor's estate, and thus a fee originally held dur-
ing pleasure might become hereditary, only reverting
to the Crown when the tenant died without heirs,
forfeited it for some crime or breach of duty.

or

When the chiefs had thus arrived at acquiring hereditary fees, it became a common practice for them, in their turn, to grant parts of their land to their own vassals, who were to hold on condition of performing services which originally were always military, with the addition of any others that might be agreed upon. This system of granting smaller The Lord and fees was called Subinfeudation, the grantor being called the Lord, from the Teutonic Hlaford-a giver -whilst the retainer was called a Vassal, a word signifying a servant. And by a process similar to that already described in the case of the lords, the vassal also came in time to receive an estate like that of his lord, namely, one which was to endure for his life, and descend to his issue after his death. But although the fee might go in the vassal's family from one generation to another, its ultimate ownership still remained with the lord and his successors; it still formed a part of his seigniory or lordship; the tenant still remained liable to perform various military and other services; and if these were not duly rendered, or if his issue became extinct, his fee formed again the property of that family from whom it had been originally derived. The system which has been thus briefly sketched was that in vogue amongst the Normans in the beginning of the eleventh century, and we will proceed to notice how they put it into practice upon their arrival in this country.

William the
Conqueror

seizes upon

After the battle of Hastings, William the Conqueror seized upon all the former Boc' land or private estates

land.

as his own de

his barons.

of Edward the Confessor, as well as upon the lands of large tracts of those Saxons who had fought on the side of Harold; and the large tracts of land thus placed at his disposal. were subsequently increased by the forfeitures consequent on the many rebellions of the Saxons which took place during the years immediately following the Conquest. Of these lands the king, following the He retains part system already described, retained part as his own mesne and demesne (c), and out of the rest made large grants to grants fees to the principal chieftains or barons who had accompanied him from Normandy. Each estate granted to a baron, and made up of adjoining lands, was called his manor, and the immense extent of land thus dis- The Manor. posed of by William may be estimated from the fact that, as appears by Domesday Book, the Earl of Moreton (William's brother) received no less than seven hundred and ninety-three manors, whilst many other barons received from one hundred to four hundred apiece (d). These manors were also dealt with according to the feudal system, that is to say, each was divided into two parts. Of these, the baron reserved one part to form his own demesne, cultivating so much. of it as he thought fit, and leaving some as forest and marsh land, some (known as the lord's waste) as common grazing ground for the cattle of himself, his vassals, and his dependants. The other part he distributed into fees, which he granted to his vassals.

All fees granted at the Conquest, whether to the Tenure of fees granted at the barons, or by them to their vassals, were held on con- Conquest. dition of performing military service when required; this being considered the most honourable form of tenure. Its principal characteristics were that the services to be rendered were uncertain, and also free, that is, worthy of being performed by a free man. The chief incidents of the tenure were Fealty and Fealty and Homage.

(c) From the French mesner, to govern.

(d) I Ellis, Domesday, 227.

Knight Service.

Homage. Of these, fealty was the older, and existed before the introduction of fees: it consisted in an acknowledgment, publicly made, of the relative position of the lord and his tenant: thus furnishing evidence to which either could resort to show what were the lands granted to the tenant, and what the conditions on which he held them. This military tenure was at first called tenure by Knight Service, only when the fee comprised land of a certain value, but the name appears to have been afterwards applied to it generally.

In taking the oath of fealty (fidelity) the tenant stood covered before his lord, and swore that he would be his faithful tenant and render his due services. Afterwards, when it became usual to grant fees which extended beyond the lifetime of the tenant and went to his heir (and were therefore called "estates of inheritance"), homage was added to fealty, in order, by having a ceremony distinct from fealty, and publicly performed, to make it a matter of notoriety that the tenant had a more durable grant than one for his life only (e). Homage thus became the characteristic mark of such grants, and could only be claimed or rendered by the owner of an estate of inheritance.

In doing homage, the tenant knelt, uncovered and ungirt, before his lord, professed himself to be his man (homo), and received a kiss from him in recognition of the close intimacy which was henceforth to subsist between them; after which he took the oath of fealty in the usual way (ƒ).

Homage, besides expressing this personal relation between lord and tenant, drew with it other important

(e) 1 Co. Litt. (Thomas Ed.), 65a note (c), p. 253.

(f) Bracton, lib. 2, c. 35, ¶ 8.

consequences.
A lord who took homage from his
tenant thereby guaranteed him secure possession of
his lands; and, on the other hand, could not, until he
had received his tenant's homage, claim many of the
privileges incident to his position of lord. The per-
formance of homage was, therefore, a benefit for both
parties, and could, if necessary, be enforced by process
of law.

In addition to the tenure by knight service, which New forms of tenure adopted the Normans had brought with them, they soon came by the Norto recognise, in a modified form, another tenure already mans. established in England. It has been previously mentioned that many of the Saxons had lost their lands. after the Conquest and during the subsequent rebellions, and this number comprised nearly all the eorls and thanes who made up the Saxon nobility. There remained, however, a large number of middleclass landowners, or ceorls, who had taken no part in the struggle between William and Harold. These at first remained unmolested in their estates, but after a time, when a strong personal hatred had sprung up between the Saxons and the Normans, the lands of all the ceorls were comprised indiscriminately in the grants made by the king. The Saxons, therefore, complained to William, who, after consulting his barons, I decided that what the ceorls could obtain of the lords should be their own by inviolable right. The Norman lords, however, were not disposed to give up their newly-acquired territories without some equivalent, and thus the Saxons who received back any part of their lands were bound thenceforth by constant serviceableness to purchase their lord's favour (g).

The tenure thus established was called Socage (h) Socage Tenure.

(g) Somner on Gavelkind, 128.

(h) The derivation of this word has been ascribed by some writers to the French .o, a ploughshare, because the tenants were originally