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 G54 TENURE the quality of the materials used, but the weight of authority seems to favor cotton in preference to linen. In the beginning of the American civil war, when the price of cotton became excessive, the United (States govern- ment purchased a large number of linen tents, but the troops objected to using them, and they were replaced by cotton ones. Hospital Tents. In ancient times sick and wounded soldiers were treated in their general quarters. Tents specially set apart for the sick are said to have been first provided by Queen Isabella of Spain during the wars of Granada, but they did not come into general use. Invalids were occasionally treated in tents during the 17th and 18th centuries, but no organized tent hos- pitals, the records of which have any sanitary value, were established before the Crimean war. The enforced use of tents at Varna, made necessary by the absence of houses, first aroused attention to the subject of tent hos- pitals. The tent used was the hospital mar- quee of the British service, which is a double tent, a large one completely enveloping a smaller one, with an air space of about 18 in. between them. The inner tent is 28 ft. long, 15 ft. wide, and 12 ft. high in the middle, with walls 5 ft. high, and it has a floor cloth of painted canvas. It will accommodate 12 or 14 persons. The Prussian hospital tent, adopt- ed in 1807, is house-shaped, double, supported by an iron frame, and large enough for 12 beds. In the Franco-German war a small square tent, supported by a light wooden frame and having a projecting pyramidal roof, was used. It was intended for but two beds, and was specially devoted to the treatment of those suffering from contagious diseases. The Turks have made use of a hospital tent which is described as of a long oval shape, supported by a pole at each end, and made of double canvas. The Russians, Austrians, and Italians have no special tent set apart for this pur- pose. The hospital tent used by the United FIG. 4. American Hospital Tent. States government is a rectangular house tent, 14 by 15 ft. in diameter, and 11 ft. high in the centre, with a wall 4 ft. 6 in. high, and a fly forming a second roof which overlaps the wall about a foot. At one end it is furnished with a lapel so that two or more tents can be joined together to form one long tent. Each tent accommodates eight or ten patients. See " The American Ambulance," by Dr. Thomas W. Evans (London, 1873). TENURE (Lat. tenure, to hold), in its most general sense, the mode of holding property. In law it is usually confined to the manner of holding land or real property. The first grand division of tenures is into allodial tenures and feudal tenures. Of the word allodial, both the origin and the exact original meaning are un- certain. Practically it means a tenure which unites the right of the lord and the right of the tenant, or all right and title to or interest in the land. Hence, one who held land by allo- dial tenure had full and unencumbered posses- sion of it, with an absolute right to use and dispose of it at his own pleasure, with no con- trol of any one, and no responsibility to any one. An allodial holding stands in direct con- trast with a feudal tenure, of which it was the essential quality that a tenant held it of a lord, and that tenant and lord had each their sepa- rate rights and interests in it and over it, or, in the language of the law, their separate estates in it. From this characteristic of allodial ten- ure, it is sometimes said that all the land in the United States is held by this tenure. It seems to be generally admitted that previous to the prevalence of the feudal system the lands of European nations were held by allodial ten- ure, and that during the convulsions of the 9th, 10th, and llth centuries, it became common for holders of land voluntarily to convert their allodial tenure into a feudal tenure, and so hold of some lord. One reason, and probably the strongest, was to obtain his support and pro- tection in return for the allegiance of the ten- ant ; but it may be believed that another cause of this change was the general desire to profit by the opportunity which the feudal system offered of escaping from the disordered and fragmentary condition of society then preva- lent. This feudal system was nowhere more fully developed or more firmly established than in Normandy. It was therefore a matter of course that when William acquired England under a claim of title; but by the power of a feudal army which he carried with him, he should establish his victorious chiefs upon the land their arms had won under that feudal sys- tem which was admirably adapted to give to the sovereign lord, at any moment, a martial array that should combine nearly all the avail- able force of the country, and be supported by all its available resources. He divided the land in unequal portions, observing that gradation of rank and of possession which constituted a characteristic feature of the system. While he who received a single manor became a baron and had his own court, they who received six or more were originally, classed as greater barons ; and to some of his principal chiefs he gave as many as 700 manors. In this way he divided most of the valuable land of England. His immediate successors followed the same system, and before a century had elapsed the feudal system and the feudal tenures were established over nearly all England. All these tenures rested upon the fee (see FEE) ; but they were very various, and divided the interest in and the beneficiary use of the land, between