Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol II).djvu/118

 106 is the primary ene and acceptation of the word fee. But (as ir Martin Wright very jutly oberves ) the doctrine, "that all lands are holden," having been for o many ages a fixed and undeniable axiom, our Englih lawyers do very rarely (of late years epecially) ue the word fee in this it's primary original ene, in contraditinction to allodium or abolute property, with which they have no concern; but generally ue it to expres the continuance or quantity of etate. A fee therefore, in general, ignifies an etate of inheritance; being the highet and mot extenive interet that a man can have in a feud: and, when the term is ued imply, without any other adjunct, or has the adjunct of imple annexed to it, (as, a fee, or, a fee-imple) it is ued in contraditinction to a fee conditional at the common law, or a fee-tail by the tatute; importing an abolute inheritance, clear of any condition, limitation, or retrictions to particular heirs, but decendible to the heirs general, whether male or female, lineal or collateral. And in no other ene than this is the king aid to be eied in fee, he being the feudatory of no man.

therefore fee for the future, unles where otherwie explained, in this it's econdary ene, as a tate of inheritance, it is applicable to, and may be had in, any kind of hereditaments either corporeal or incorporeal. But there is this ditinction between the two pecies of hereditaments; that, of a corporeal inheritance a man hall be aid to be eied in his demene, as of fee; of an incorporeal one he hall only be aid to be eied as of fee, and not in his demene. For, as incorporeal hereditaments are in their nature collateral to, and iue out of, lands and houes, their owner hath no property, dominicum, or demene, in the thing itelf, but hath only omething derived out of it; reembling the ervitutes, or ervices, of the civil law. The dominicum or pro- Rh