8. A seisin is the instrument or attestation of a notary, that possession was actually given by the superior or his bailie to the vassal or his attorney ; and it sometimes gets the name of infeftment, though that word in its proper sense signifies the whole feudal right. For a long time, the ap pending of the bailie's seal to the superior's charter or pre precept, and sometimes his separate declaration that he had given seisin, completed the vassal's right, without the attestation of a notary. But afterwards a notorial instru ment came to be considered as a necessary solemnity, not suppliable either by a proof of natural possession, or even of the special fact, that the vassal was duly entered to the possession by the superior's bailie.
9. All seisins and other real rights mentioned in 1617, c. 16, must be registered within sixty days after their date, eitherin the general register of seisins at Edinburgh, or in the register of the particular shire appointed by the acts, which, it must be observed, is not in every case the shire within which the lands lie. Unregistered seisins are ineffectual against third parties, but they are valid against the grantors and their heirs.
10. The attestation of the keeper of the records on the back of the seisin that it was registered, was deemed a sufficient registration 1686, c. 19. But as this weakened the security intended from the records to singular suc cessors, the actual booking of seisins, and of other writ ings presented for registration, is now required, 1696, c. 18. Seisins regularly recorded are preferable, not according to their own (fates, but the dates of their re gistration.
11. Seisin necessarily supposes a superior by whom it is given ; the right, therefore, which the sovereign, who acknowleges no superior, has over the whole lands of Scot land, is constituted jure corona without seisin. In several parcels of land that lie contiguous to one another, one seisin serves for all, unless the right of the several parcels be either holden of different super ions, or derived from dif ferent authors, or enjoyed by different tenures under the same superior.
12. A charter not perfected by seisin, is a right merely personal, which does not transfer the property ; and a sei sin of itself bears no faith without its warrant. It is the sei sin and charter joined together that constitutes the feudal right, and secures the receiver against the effect of all posterior seisins, even though the charters on which they proceed should be prior to his ; and still more against all qualities burdening his author's right, contained in latent personal declarations or back-bonds, which have not been rendered litigious before his seisin.
13. No quality, which is designed as a lien or real burden on a feudal right, can be effectual against singular succes sors, if it be not inserted in the investiture, 14. Feudal subjects are chiefly distinguished by their different manners of holding, which were either ward. feu, blanch, or burgage.-- Ward-holding, which is now abolished by 20 Geo. 1. e. 50, was that which was granted for military service.
15. Feu-holding, is that whereby the vassal is ohliged to pay to the superior a yearly rent in money or grain, and sometimes also in services proper to a farm ; as ploughing, reaping, carriages for the superior's use, &c. nomine feud: firma.
16. Blanch-holding (not unlike the fetedum francum of the Lombards) is that whereby the vassal is to pay to the superior an elusory yearly duty ; as a penny money, a rose, a pair of gilt spurs, &c. merely in acknowledgment of the superiority, nomine alba firma.
17. Bargage-holding, is that by which boroughs royal hold of the sovereign the lands which arc contained in their chatters of erection.
18. Feudal subjects granted to churches, monasteries, or other societies for religious or charitable uses, are said to be morted, or granted ad manum mortuam ; either because all casualties must necessarily be lost to the superior, where the vassal is a corporation which never dies ; or because the property of these subjects is granted to a dead hand, which cannot transfer it to another. In lands mortified in times of Popery to the church, whether granted to prelates for the behoof of the church, or in pu ram eleemosynam, the only services p•estable by the vassal were, prayers and singing of masses for the souls of the deceased, which approaches more to blanch-holding than ward. The purposes of such grants having been upon the Reformation declared super stitious, the lands morti fied were annexed to the crown. But mortifications to universities, hospitals, &c. were not affected by that an nexation ; and lands may at this day be mortified to any lawful purpose, either by blanch or by feu-holding.