Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 10.djvu/106

80 80 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. the land as security for the payment of his debt. He had, there- fore, no right to distrain, unless such a right was expressly given in the grant. Moreover, a rent could be granted only by deed. Such were the distinctions between a rent reserved and a rent granted at common law. An anomaly was, however, introduced by the statute of Quia Emptores ; ^ for it was a consequence of that stat- ute that a grant of land in fee no longer created the relation of lord and tenant between the grantor and the grantee, nor left any rever- sion or seigniory in the grantor, but operated simply as an assign- ment of the grantor's tenancy to the grantee ; in short, that such a grant created no new feudal relation, but simply changed one of the parties to an old one. It was still possible, notwithstanding the statute, upon a grant of land in fee, for the grantor to reserve a rent, but the nature of a rent so reserved was changed by the stat- ute to that of a rent granted. Indeed, a grant of land in fee, re- serving a rent, has had, since the statute, the same effect that two grants would have^ namely, a grant of the land, and then a grant of the rent by the grantee of the land. The payment of either a rent reserved or a rent granted may be secured by the personal covenant of the grantee of the land in the one case, and of the grantor of the rent in the other, and a rent reserved commonly is so secured. Such a covenant, as has been seen, is accessory to the obligation of the land, which is the principal obligation. In order to understand to what extent it may be necessary for equity to assume jurisdiction over rents, it is necessary first to ascertain what remedies the law provides for the recovery of rents, and to what extent such remedies are available and adequate. 1. At common law, whenever any person to whom a freehold rent was payable had become seised of it, and was afterwards dis- seised, he was entitled to bring a writ of assize to recover it; but that remedy was never applicable to a rent reserved on a lease for years, or to a rent granted for a term of years, and the remedy itself no longer exists. 2. Upon a rent granted, a writ of annuity would lie at common law to compel its payment, but not upon a rent reserved. The reason why that writ would lie upon a rent granted was that a grant of a rent differed from a grant of an annuity only in being something more, and hence every grant of a rent amounted to the 1 i8 Edvv. I. Stat, i, c. i.