GAGE, GAGER (Law Lat. vadium). Per sonal property placed by a debtor in posses sion of his creditor as a' security for the pay ment of his debt; a pawii or pledge (q. v.). Granv. lib. 10, c. 6; Britton c. 27.
There was also a gage of land, which, in mediaeval English law, was characterized by delivery, of immediate possession to the ga gee, who was then as in modern times a cred itor who took the gage as a security. There were two forms, the usufruct gage and the property gage. The former included the va &am vivum and the Podium mortuum.
The property gage involved the feature of. forfeiture, either (1) where the gagee receiv ed possession at once, but not• proprietorship until default, and (2) where he acquired im mediate proprietorship, terminable, however, upon payment of the debt by a certain day. In each case forfeiture followed default without reference to the relative values of the land and the debt.
The modern idea of a gage of land as a security for a debt, with possession In the debtor, was a de velopment of the period after the Norman Conquest, in which there was so rapid a growth in English law of the tendency to foster the creation of credits and facilities for the uee of all kinds of property as security for loans and debts. This change of the
point of view was part passu with the development of the more numerous and effective forms of actions and execution. The gage of property, whether real or personal, became the creation of a mere security by mortgage, pledge, or other lien. As to the hie torical development of the gage of land, eee two papers by H. D. Haseltlne in 17 Harv. L. Rev. 549, 18 id. 36 (3 Sel. Essays Anglo-Amer. L. H. 661).
To pledge; to wage. Webster Diet.
Gager is used both as noun and verb: e. g. gager del ley, wager of law ; Jacobs; gager ley, to wage law; Britton c. 27; gager deliv erance, to put in sureties to deliver cattle distrained; Termes de la Ley; Kitchen, fol. 145; Fitzh. N. B. fol. 67, 74.
Estates in gage are those held in vadio or pledge; vivum vadium is a vifgage or living pledge; a mortgage is mortuum vadium, a dead-gage or pledge; for, whatsoever profit it yields, it redeems not itself, unless the whole amount secured is paid at the appoint ed time. Cowell.