Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol II).djvu/383

 Ch. 22. in chancery. When therefore the lord had accepted a urrender of his tenant's interet, upon confidence to re-grant the etate to another peron, either then exprely named or to be afterwards named in the tenant's will, the chancery inforced this trut as a matter of concience; which juridiction, though eemingly new in the time of Edward IV, was generally acquieced in, as it opened the way for the alienation of copyholds, as well as of freehold etates, and as it rendered the ue of them both equally deviable by tetament. Yet, even to this day, the new tenant cannot be admitted but by compoition with the lord, and paying him a fine by way of acknowlegement for the licence of alienation. Add to this the plain feodal invetiture, by delivering the ymbol of eiin in preence of the other tenants in open court; "quando hata vel aliud corporeum quidlibet porrigitur a domino e invetituram facere dicente; quae altem coram duobus vaallis olenniter fieri debet :" and, to crown the whole, the oath of fealty annexed, the very bond of feodal ubjection. From all which we may fairly conclude, that, had there been no other evidence of the fact in the ret of our tenures and etates, the very exitence of copyholds, and the manner in which they are transferred, would incontetably prove the very univeral reception, which this northern ytem of property for a long time obtained in this iland; and which communicated itelf, or at leat it's imilitude, even to our very villeins and bondmen.

method of conveyance is o eential to the nature of a copyhold etate, that it cannot poibly be transferred by any other aurance. No feoffment, fine, or recovery (in the king's courts) has any operation thereupon. If I would exchange a copyhold etate with another, I cannot do it by an ordinary deed of exchange at the common law; but we mut urrender to each other's ue, and the lord will admit us accordingly. If I would devie a copyhold, I mut urrender it to the ue of my lat will Rh