Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol II).djvu/259

 Ch. 15. the Norman jurits, who tiled the firt purchaor (that is, he who firt brought the etate into the family which at preent owns it) the conqueror or conquereur. Which eems to be all that was meant by the appellation which was given to William the Norman, when his manner of acending the throne of England was, in his own and his ucceors' charters, and by the hitorians of the times, entitled conquaetus, and himelf conquaetor or conquiitor ; ignifying, that he was the firt of his family who acquired the crown of England, and from whom therefore all future claims by decent mut be derived: though now, from our diue of the feodal ene of the word, together with the reflexion on his forcible method of acquiition, we are apt to annex the idea of victory to this name of conquet or conquiition; a title which, however jut with regard to the crown, the conqueror never pretended with regard to the realm of England; nor, in fact, ever had.

difference in effect, between the acquiition of an etate by decent and by purchae, conits principally in thee two points: 1. That by purchae the etate acquires a new inheritable quality, and is decendible to the owner's blood in general, and not the blood only of ome particular ancetor. For, when a man takes an etate by purchae, he takes it not ut feudum paternum or maternum, which would decend only to the heirs by the father's or the mother's ide: but he takes it ut feudum antiquum, as a feud of indefinite antiquity; whereby it becomes inheritable to his heirs general, firt of the paternal, and then of the maternal line. 2. An etate taken by purchae will not make the heir anwerable for the acts of the ancetor, as an etate by decent will. For, if the ancetor by any deed, obligation, covenant, or the like, bindeth himelf and his heirs, and dieth; this deed, obligation, or covenant, hall be binding upon the heir, o far forth only as he had any etate of inheritance veted in him (or in ome other in trut for him ) by decent from that Rh