Page:History of Manchester (1771), Volume 1, by John Whitaker.djvu/294

 Chap.VIIL OF MA N C H E S T E R. 263 the fee into his own hands upon the death of the occupant, have retained it in his own pofleffion till the heir came to requeft the right or till the furvivor was capable of performing the fervice due to him for it> have then made a formal furrendery of it again. to the heir 4 and have obliged him to pay an acknowledgment for the furrendery invert iture or premier feizin of it * Thefe were all the native productions of that great principle of the feudal polity, which acknowledged all the lands of a kingdom or of a barony to have been originally held by the original concep- tion of the royal or the private lord, which confefled the right of the primary donation to have been abfolutely terminated by the death of the grantee, and • which received the continuation of the grant to each focceflive heir as a new donation • from the lord. The heriot therefore was paid upon the death of every pofleffor, as the lord's feizin of-the whole ; and other difcharges. were made at the renewal of the grant or the portioning of a daughter, as an acknowledgment of the lord's! primary right to the whole. And the fame principle, gradually operating down*-
 * wards, affe&ed the villain eftates in the fame manner. The Britifh

villain exprefsly held his land to the laft, as the feudatory muft have ^a&ually held his at thefifft, dependanton the will of his lord. But though the original tenure of villainage remained nominally the fame, property gradually gained upon thefe • precarious tenures h> the villain as in the freehold eftates, and the former had early begun* like the^ latter, to be continued for life and to defcend to the heirs among the Britons, The- latter were be** come abfolutely hereditary before the age of Howcl Dha, and the former were become partially, fo, the houfe defcending by law, and the lands devolving by allowance, to the posterity of -the previous occupant i And hence only could the heriot and the relief have been the* incidents equally of the. freehold and of the villain lands; at all among the Britons. Such was the curious and original frame of the Brfrifh te- nures, a compleat fyftem of feuds in miniature,, and the fame in effdft with the more enlarged (yftcm- of the Normans.-. The fameaefs is great enough^ to evince the very near relation of the former .-