BOOK THE FIRST. CHAPTER THE FIRST. Of the Relation of Landlord and Tenant; its Origin; and what Estates may be thereupon holden. tract. A lease is a contract for the possession and the profits Definition of of lands and tenements on the one side, and a recompence of lease by conrent or other consideration on the other. (a) A lease for years may be made by deed, by writing not being a deed, and if not exceeding three years in duration, by parol. The relation of landlord and tenant may be also effected Relation of by means of conveyance in consideration of a return of rent or other recompence. The party letting or conveying the lands is the lessor or landlord, and the party to whom the lease or conveyance is made is the lessee or tenant. The king, by the law of England, is the supreme lord of the whole soil, whoever, therefore, holds lands, must hold them mediately or immediately of him; and while the subject enjoys the usufructuary possession, the absolute and ultimate dominion remains in the king. (b) Accordingly, the subject to whom the king granted lands, (b) Co. Lit. 1. a. (a) 4 Bac. Ab. 1. B landlord and tenant by con veyance. as they were to be holden of him by some prescribed service, was called his tenant; the lands or possessions granted, the tenement; and the manner in which they were held, the tenure. Land being granted to a man, a fief was thereby created; and according to the early feudal institutions, such tenant again granted out portions of his land to other subjects; and thus became himself the lord of tenants, who held of him by service in like manner as he held of his sovereign. Still the king remained the lord paramount over all; his immediate tenants being specially denominated tenants in capite. But as the unrestrained alienation of such fiefs would obviously have proved fatal to the feudal system, where so much depended upon the personal services of the tenant, no man seems to have been permitted to alien his lands, unless by the express licence of his lord. And though the strictness of this rule was softened down by the laws of king Henry I. whereby a man might alien the lands which he himself acquired to hold to him, his heirs, and assigns, (c) still he was not permitted to dispose of those lands which had been transmitted to him by his ancestor to the disinheritance of his children. (d) Magna Charta (e), however, expressly allowed a man to dispose of his land, provided he left enough to supply the services due to his lord and the statute of quia emptores (ƒ) empowered all men (except tenants in capite) to alien their lands at their pleasure; and removed all the difficulties arising from the multiplication of mesne tenures, by enacting that the alienee should hold, not of the alienor, but of the chief lord of the same fee. The consequence of this enactment in practice is, that on a conveyance in fee, although part of the estate, such as mines or the like, may be excepted out of the grant; yet no privity of (c) LL. Hen. I. c. 70. (e) 9 Hen. III. c. 32. |