KNIGHT'S SERVICE, TENURE BY, otherwise called tenure in chivalry, or per service de chivaler, per servitinin iiulitare, was, from the times immediately succeeding the Norman Conquest in the 1 1 th century to the period of the civil war in the 17th, considered the first and the most important, as it was also the most general, mode of holding land in England. The land thus held was said to consist of so many knight's fees, feoda militia, that is, so many portions of laud capable of supporting the dignity of a knight. [KNIGHT'S Fee.] Ile who held an entire knight's fee was bound by his tenure, when called upon so to du, to follow his lord to the wars (under certain restrictions as to theplace at which the service was to be performed), and to remain with him forty days in every year, or to send some other knight duly qualified to perform the services. From the owner of half a knight's fee twenty days attendance only could be required ; and the obligation attaching to the quarter of a knight's fee was satisfied by the performance of ten days service. On the other hand, a person holding several knight's fees, whether forming one or several estates, was bound to furnish a knight in respect of each.
Besides this permanent liability to military service, the tenant was subject to other occasional burdens. The principal of those are the following incidental services :—First, Aids, or payments which the vassal holding by knight's service was bound to make for ransoming his lord's person if taken prisoner ; for making the lord's eldest son a knight ; and for marrying, that is, providing a marriage portion for the lord's eldest daughter. Secondly, Reliefs, being a payment made by the heir in the nature of a composition for leave to enter upon land descending to him after he had attained his full age. Thirdly, Printer Seisin, or the right of the crown, where the lands were heicl of the king, to a.. years profit of land descending to an heir who was of full ago at the time of the death of his ancestor. Fourthly, Wert/ship, or the right to the custody of the body and lands of an heir to whom the Land had descended during his minority, the king or other lord in such awe taking the profits of the land during the minority to his own use, or selling the wardship to a stranger if he thought proper. Fifthly,
Marriage, or a right in the lord, where the land descended to an heir within age, to tender to him or her a wife or a husband; and if the heir refused a match without disparagement, that is, without disparity of rank, crime, or bodily infirmity, the lord became entitled to hold the land as a security for payment by the heir of the amount for which the lord had sold or which he might have obtained for the marriage. Sixthly, Fines upon Alienation. To these Blackstone adds a seventh, Escheat, or tho returning of the Land to the lord upon the felony or forfeiture of the tenant, or his dying without heirs. [Escuear.] But escheat is not peculiar to tenure by knight's service.
This system, which Blackstone justly characterises as a complicated and extensive slavery, fell to the ground during the existence of the Commonwealth ; and the abolition of this species of tenure was con firmed upon the Restoration, as it would have been absurd and dangerous to attempt a renewal of such oppressive burdens. Accordingly, the 12th Car. II., c. 24, takes away tenure by knight's service, whether the lands are held of the crown or of a subject, together with all its oppressive fruits and peculiar consequences, and converts every such tenure into free and common socage. [Socam] Nothing can be more comprehensive than the terms of this act; besides generally abolishing tenure by knight's service, and its con sequenem, it descends into particulars, with a redundancy of words, which appear to indicate an extreme anxiety to extirpate completely all the evils which the legislature had under contemplation. The statute, after taking away the court of wards and liveries, enumerates wardsliips, liveries, primer scisins or ousterlemains, values and forfei tures of marriages, and fines, seizures, and pardons for alienation, and sweeps away the whole. But rents certain, heriots PIERIOT1, suit of court and other services Incident to common socage, and fealty [Diarness], and also fines for alienation duo by tho customs of par ticular manors, are preserved. Reliefs for lands, of which the tenure is converted into common soup, are saved in cases where a quitrent is also livable.