Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol II).djvu/391

 Ch. 23. though the feodal retraint on alienations by deed vanihed very early, yet this on wills continued for ome centuries after; from an apprehenion of infirmity and impoition on the tetator in extremis, which made uch devies upicious. Beides, in devies there was wanting that general notoriety, and public deignation of the ucceor, which in decents is apparent to the neighbourhood, and which the implicity of the common law always required in every transfer and new acquiition of property.

when eccleiatical ingenuity had invented the doctrine of ues, as a thing ditinct from the land, ues began to be devied very frequently, and the deviee of the ue could in chancery compel it's execution. For it is oberved by Gilbert, that, as the popih clergy then generally fate in the court of chancery, they conidered that men are mot liberal when they can enjoy their poeions no longer; and therefore at their death would chooe to dipoe of them to thoe, who, according to the upertition of the times, could intercede for their happines in another world. But, when the tatute of ues had annexed the poeion to the ue, thee ues, being now the very land itelf, became no longer deviable: which might have occaioned a great revolution in the law of devies, had not the tatute of wills been made about five years after, viz. 32 Hen. VIII. c. 1. explained by 34 Hen. VIII. c. 5. which enacted, that all perons being eied in fee-imple (except feme-coverts, infants, idiots, and perons of nonane memory) might by will and tetament in writing devie to any other peron, but not to bodies corporate, two thirds of their lands, tenements, and hereditaments, held in chivalry, and the whole of thoe held in ocage: which now, through the alteration of tenures by the tatute of Charles the econd, amounts to the whole of their landed property, except their copyhold tenements.

were excepted in thee tatutes, to prevent the extention of gifts in mortmain; but now, by contruc- Rh