The Land Tenure of England.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3802, 5 March 1881, Page 1

The Land Tenure of England.

No. V,

In the present article we purpose to speak of copyhold tenure.

Copyhold tenures although very meanly descended yet come of an ancient house, for it appears that copyholders are in truth no other than villeins, who by along series of immemorial encroachments on the lord, at last established a customary right to those estates, which before were held absolutely at the lord's will. By the gradual progress of manumission, also (either voluntary or constructive) the personal condition of rillenage was at length everywhere commuted in to freedom. At the period of the reformation in religion this change had already become almost complete. Although many villeins were emancipated, it appears as though the clergy did not entertain such liberal regard for their safety, and the desirability of freedom, which they preached, to the lords. When any lord was seriously ill, and in a dangerous condition, the clergy, we read, " the holy fathers, monks, an friars, had in their confessions, and specially in their extreme and deadly sickness, convinced the laity howdangerous a practice it was for one Christian man to hold another in bondage, so that temporal men by little and little, by reason of that terror on their consciences, were glad to manumit all their villeins. But the said holy fathers— with the abbots and friars—did not in like sort by theirs; for they also had a scruple in conscience to impoverish and despoil the church so much as to manumit such as were bound to their churches or to the manors which the church had gotten j and so kept their, villeins still."

No freeliold can at the present day lie converted into copyhold; of which the chief and most obvious reason is that the essence of the tester tenure is immemorial custom which can of course have no application where l»ind is granted for the first time to be held according to that tenure. But, on the other hand, a copyhold is capable of being turned into freehold, by the lords conveying to the copyholder the freehold of the particular premises or releasing to him the eeiguorial rights ; which is called enfranchisement.

Copyhold, like the other tenures, invokes the obligation of fealty. A. copyhold tenement is descendible also, where the custom of the manor so permits, to the heir. As for the rule of descent, it is the same with the ordinary rule of free socage tenure, though in some it is according to the method ot gravelkind, and in others according to that in borough English. But an incident almost peculiar to copyholds, although it sometimes occurs in freehold or customary freehold lands, is that of heriots. This custom is supposed to have been adopted from the Dutch, and was, that on the death of a tenant his beast or other article should be yipen tothelonl. If considered as a relic of villein tenure there was originally less hardships in it, where all the goods and chattels belonged to the lord and he might have seized, them even in the villein's lifetime; but it is now justly considered as one of the most oppressive circumstances which attend the modern law of tenures. The wardship iv copyhold also resembles that in socage ; for the lord is not nuardiau (except by special custom), but the guardianship belougs to the next of kin of the infant to whom iW copyhold tenure cannot descend \ and Ue like guardian in socage is accouuiiayie. ij, his ward for the profits. Coipykoiid tenure is, iv some manors, subject, siso to relinf, of ihe same uature with th»t in socage, and to

escheatand -forfekHrev;;' «^Ba^a-oopy»holder ■ cannot aliene except through"the medium of a surrender to the lord ; and the-c6py-! hold passes not to the alienee till the lord admits himi Fines, too, are in general payable, to the lord, on alienation, and there are other fines upon hereditary descent. In some of these manors only one of these sorts can be demanded, in some both, and in others neither.* They are sometimes arbitrary, arid at the will of the lord, sometimes fixed by custom • but t even when arbitrary the courts of law, in 'favor of the liberty i oMheobpy-holders, "have tied them down to be reasonable in Tcheir. extent^ Otherwise they, might amount & a^isfrerisbn of the estate? From this'; instance we may judge of the favourable disposition that/ the law of England (which is the law of liberty) has always shown to this species of tenants, ■ by removing as far as possible every real badge of slavery from them, however some liominaPbnes may continue. .In our next will speak of Ancient. Demesne. ; ,,. : .