CONVEYANCING is the art of preparing the deeds or instruments used for the trans ference of property from one person to another. Such writings form the title or evidence of the right of the person possessing or claiming possession of property; and it is of the greatest importance that the conveyancer employed to prepare them. should be pos sessed of a competent knowledge of the law as applicable to such deeds, and have the skill required to frame them in such a form as clearly to express and attain the object intended. In the earliest stage of society, there was no call for the profession of a con veyancer; property was held in right of occupancy, without any written title, and was also conveyed from one to another without writing, the new owner being usually put in possession in presence of witnesses called for the purpose, by some symbolical form, such as the delivery of earth and stone to represent the land, a wand to represent wood, grass and corn to represent tithes, and other appropriate symbols to represent mills, fishings, or other kinds of property.
In the earlier period of the history of the Jews, the symbolical mode of changing the ownership of property was curious. "Now this was the manner in !wino. time in Israel concerning redeeming and concerning changing, for to confirm all things: a man plucked off his shoe, and gave it to his neighbor: and this was a testimony in Israel " (Ruth iv. 7). In later times, the Jews appear to have had a much more artistic system of C., making use of all the safeguards that are used in modern times—viz., writing, witnesses, subscribing, sealing, and recording the documents. There is a very distinct account of a Jewish conveyance in the later pei:od in Jeremiah xxxii. 9-12. "And I bought the field of Ilanameel, and weighed him the money. And I subscribed the evi dence, and sealed it, and took witnesses. So I took the evidence of the purchase, both that which was sealed according to the law and custom, and that which was open: and I gave the evidence of the purchase unto Baruch, in the sight of Hanameel [the seller], and in the presence of the witnesses that subscribed the book of the purchase, before all the Jews that sat in the court of the prison." The Romans made no distinction in principle between real and personal or movable and immovable property, iu their conveyancing. Each kind of property was held free of any superior. Their deeds were therefore simple, not requiring any reservation or declaration of the superior's rights. They had public registers in which conveyances were recorded. After the invasion of the southern by the northern nations, the feudal system spread over nearly the whole of Europe, and C. was regulated in accordance with it; the rights of the superior and the rights of the vassal or proprietor being care fully distinguished. The leges barbarorum, contained in the Burgundian code, and the code of the Longobardi, embody the older feudal uses, from which the modern are derived. In the 7th c., a work of peculiar interest to the conveyancer was compiled by Marculfus, a monk, containing the germs of modern conveyancing. It is in substance .a book of styles or forms of deeds, partly Roman and partly feudal. The genius of the system of land-rights derived from the barbarians was to concentrate the property of land, for the sake of individual power; while the Roman laws and customs tended in the opposite direction, for they treated land in regard to succession like movables, as the French now do, dividing it among the whole members of a family. Alienation by sale or gift was freely permitted, a power long denied by the feudal rules. Indeed, fens or grants were originally revocable by the superior, and did not become hereditary till ithe time of Charlemagne.
Among the ancient Goths and Swedes, the conveyance of land was made in the presence of witnesses, who extended the cloak of the buyer, while the seller threw a of the hind into it, as a symb4 of the transference of possession. Among the Saxons, the delivery of a turf by the seller to the buyer was necessary. Written titles were, however, introduced at an early period, and at first were short and simple in form, but increased in length and complexity as civilization advanced. containing
.various conditions, provisions, and ilmitations, so that the art of the conveyancer became both a difficult and laborious one. He had not only to prepare the appropriate form of conveyance, but to examine the prior writings forming the title to the property. in order to judge whether they were in proper form and valid. As a freDeral rule, a written title is now essential to the possession of real property in civilized communities; and if there is no written title, the property falls to the crown or state. In the Roman empire, extending over the greater part of Europe, the system of land-rights was allodial —that is, the lands were held independent of any superior. After the irruption of the northern nations into Italy, the feudal system was introduced, by which the proprietor has only a limited right under a superior. The introduction of the feudal system tended to complicate written titles to land very much, as not only had the rights of the grantee or vassal to lie expressed and defined, but those of the granter as over lord or superior,' also. In the present century. again, the tendency is towards simplicity; and in France, the feudal system has been superseded by the code Napoleon. In Great Britain and other countries still retaining the feudal system, the forms of C. have been much shortened and simplified. While the feudal system, on the one hand, increased the complexity of C., it ought not to be forgotten that, on the other hand, it greatly lessened the number of conveyances. Under the Roman law, real property descended equally to all the heirs of a deceased proprietor, each heir requiring a written title to his own share; while the genius of the feudal law was to concentrate property in the heads of families, and the eldest son inherited the whole real estate of his ancestor; and aliena tion, by gift or sale, was long denied to feudal proprietors. Improvement in the science of law occasions improvement in conveyancing,. Under the Roman empire. the art of C. bad attained to much precision in the hands of the imperial notaries. After the fall of the empire, G. fell into the hands of ecclesiastical notaries.; by them it was communi sated to the conveyancers of tile church, who performed the duties of the conveyancer for some centuries, till after the revival of letters, when the art again passed to lay men.
The feudal system does not seem to have been generally introduced into Great Britain till after the conquest, though traces of it are to be found earlier. The inherent char acter of the feudal tenure is a grant of land made voluntarily by a king or leader, on the condition of the fidelity of the grantee and military service. While, on the one hand, the superior was a protector to the vassal in time of trouble; on the other hand, the vas sal was exposed to the cupidity and rapacity of the superior, whose right to casualties or feudal incidents enabled Into to oppress his vassals. The nature of these casualties or incidents will be explained under FINE, QUIT-RENT, IIERIOT, COPYHOLD, ESCHEAT, WAnositie, MARRIAGE. One of the most curious of these incidents was that last men tioned. A male heir required the consent of his superior, and large fines were exacted for the consent. In the time of Charles I., the earl of Warwick exacted L10,000—equal to a much larger sum now—for his consent to a lady-vassal marrying a husband in every respect suitable.
So long as feudal forms are retained, C. must be complex and expensive. Public opinion has latterly tended unmistakably towards a thorough abolition of the complex and expensive deeds required in the sale and mortgage of land; and the legislature has of late years clone much towards this reform. Movable property is usually conveyed by delivery, but there are exceptions; thus, if it has been part of the bargain that the sale has to be completed by writing, the contract must be reduced to writing; and by statute, ships must be conveyed by a writing, which must be entered in the appropriate regis ter, so as to show any change of ownership.