Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol II).djvu/104

 92 hall hold the ame, not of his immediate feoffor, but of the chief lord of the fee, of whom uch feoffor himelf held it. And from hence it is held, that all manors exiting at this day, mut have exited by immemorial precription; or at leat ever ince the 18 Edw. I. when the tatute of quia emptores was made. For no new manor can have been created ince that tatute: becaue it is eential to a manor, that there be tenants who hold of the lord, and that tatute enacts, that for the future no ubject hall create any new tenants to hold of himelf.

with regard to the folk-land, or etates held in villenage, this was a pecies of tenure neither trictly feodal, Norman, or Saxon; but mixed and compounded of them all : and which alo, on account of the heriots that uually attend it, may eem to have omewhat Danih in it's compoition. Under the Saxon government there were, as ir William Temple peaks, a ort of people in a condition of downright ervitude, ued and employed in the mot ervile works, and belonging, both they, their children, and effects, to the lord of the oil, like the ret of the cattle or tock upon it. Thee eem to have been thoe who held what was called the folk-land, from which they were removeable at the lord's pleaure. On the arrival of the Normans here, it eems not improbable, that they, who were trangers to any other than a feodal tate, might give ome parks of enfranchiement to uch wretched perons as fell to their hare, by admitting them, as well as others, to the oath of fealty; which conferred a right of protection, and raied the tenant to a kind of etate uperior to downright lavery, but inferior to every other condition. This they called villenage, and the tenants villeins, either from the word villis, or ele, as ir Edward Coke tells us, a villa; becaue they lived chiefly in villages, and were employed in rutic works of the mot fordid kind: like the Spartan helotes, to whom alone the culture of the lands was conigned; their rugged maters, like our northern ancetors, eteeming war the only honourable employment of mankind. Rh