6. The principal species of tenure which grew out of the feudal system was the tenure by knight' s service. This was essentially mili tary in its character, and required the pos session of a certain quantity of land, called a knight's fee,—the measure of which, in the time of Edward I., was estimated at twelve ploughlands, of the value of twenty pounds per annum. He who held this portion of 1and was bound to attend his lord to the wars forty days in every year, if called upon. It seems, however, that if he held but half a knight's fee he was only bound to attend twenty days. Many arbitrary and tyrannical incidents or lordly privileges were attached to this tenure, which at length became so odious and oppressive that the whole system was destroyed at a blow by the statute of Charles II. c. 24, which declared that all such lands should thenceforth be held in free and common socage,—a statute, says Blackstone, which was a greater acquisition to the civil property of this kingdom than even Magna Charta itself ; since that only pruned the luxuriances which had grown out of military tenures, and thereby preserved them in vigor, but the statute of king Charles extirpated the whole, and demolished both root and branches. See FEUDAL LAW ; Coke, Litt. 69 ; Stat. Westm. 1, c. 36.
7. Tenure in socage seems to have been a relic of Saxon liberty which, up to the time of the abolition of military tenures, had been evidently struggling with the innovations of the Normans. Its great redeeming quality was its certainty ; and in this sense it is by the old law-writers put in opposition to the tenure bylnight's service, where the tenure was altogether precarious and uncertain. Littleton defines it to be where a. tenant holds his tenement by any certain service, in lieu of all other services, so that they be not services of chivalry or knight's service ; as, to hold by fealty and twenty shillings rent, or by homage, fealty, and twenty shillinga rent, or by homage and fealty without any rent, or by fealty and a certain specified ser vice, as, to plough the lord's land for three days. Littleton. 117 ; 2 Sharswood, Blackst.
Comm. 79. See &CADE.
'S. Other tenures have grown out of the two last-mentioned species of' tenure, and ai e still extant in England, although some of them are fast becoming obsolete. Of these is the tenure by grand, sojeanty, which consists in some service immediately respecting tbe person or dignity of the sovereign : as, to carry the king's standard, or to be his con stable or marshal, his butler or chamberlain, or to perform some similar service. While the tenure by petit sojeanty requires some inferior service, not strictly military or per sonal, to the king : as, the annual render of a bow or sword. The late du,ke of Wellington annually presented his sovereign with a ban ner, in acknowledgment of his tenure. There are also tenures by copyhold and in frank almoigne, in burgage and of gavelkind ; but their nature, origin, and history are explained in the several articles appropriated to those terms. 2 Sharswood, Bla,ckst. Comm. 66 ; Coke, 2d Inst. 233.
9. Tenures were distinguished by the old common-law writers, according to the quality of the service, into free or base ; the former were such as were not unbecoming a soldier or a freeman to perform, as, to serve the lord in the wars ; while the latter were only considered fit for a peasant, as, to plough the land, and the like. They were further distinguished
with reference to the person from whom the land was held: as, a tenure in capite, where the holding was of the person of the king, and tenure in gross, where the holding was of a subject. Before the statute of Quia Emp tores, 18 Edw. I., any person might by a grant of land have created an estate as a tenure of his person or of his house or manor ; and although by Magna Charts, a matt could not alienate so much of his land as not to leave enough to answer the services due to the superior lord, yet, as that statute did not re medy the evil then complained of, it was provided by the statute above referred to, that if any tenant should alien any part of his land in fee, the alienee should hold imme diately of the lord of the fee, and should be oharged with a proportional part of the ser vice due in respect to the quantity of land held by him. The consequence of which was that upon every suoh alienation the services upon which the estate was originally granted became due to the superior lord, and not to the immediate grantee. 4 Term, 443; 4 East, 271 Crabb, Real Prop. 735.
10. The remote position of the United States, as well as the genius of its institutions, has preserved its independence of these em barrassing tenures. With scarce an excel). tion, its present condition includes no tenure but that which, as we have intimated, is ne. cessarily incident to all governments. Every estate in fee-simple is held as absolutely and unconditionally as is compatible with the state'e right of eminent dnmain. Many grants of land made by the British government prior to the revolution created socage tenures, which were subsequently abolished or modi- ' fied by the legislatures of the different states. Thus, by the charter of Pennsylvania, the proprietary held his estate of the crown in free and common socage, his grantees being thereby also authorized to hold of him direct, notwithstanding the statute orQuia Emptores. The act of Pennsylvania of November 27, 1779, substituted the commonwealth in place of the proprietaries as the ultimate propri etor nf whom lands were held. In New York there was supposed to have been some spe cies of military tenure introduced by the Dutch previous to their surrender to the Eng lish, in 1664 ; but the legislature of that state in 1787 turned them all into a tenure . in free and common socage, and finally, in 1830, abolished this latter tenure entirely, and declared that ail lands in that state should thenceforth be held upon a uniform allodial tenure. On this subject, consult Bracton; Glanville ; Coke, Litt. ; Wright, Tenures; Maddox, Hist. Exch.; Sullivan, Leet. ; Craig, de Feud. ; DuCange ; Reeve, Hist. of Eng. Law ; Kent, Commentaries; Sharswood's Lecture before the Law Ace demy of Philadelphia, at the opening session of 1855-56 ; Washburn, Real Property.