Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol II).djvu/53

 Ch. 3. X. are the lat pecies of incorporeal hereditaments. The word, rent, or render, reditus, ignifies a compenation, or return; it being in the nature of an acknowlegement given for the poeion of ome corporeal inheritance. It is defined to be a certain profit iuing yearly out of lands and tenements corporeal. It mut be a profit; yet there is no occaion for it to be, as it uually is, a um of money: for purs, capons, hores, corn, and other matters may be rendered, and frequently are rendered, by way of rent. It may alo conit in ervices or manual operations; as, to plough o many acres of ground, to attend the king or the lord to the wars, and the like; which ervices in the eye of the law are profits. This profit mut alo be certain; or that which may be reduced to a certainty by either party. It mut alo iue yearly; though there is no occaion for it to iue every ucceive year; but it may be reerved every econd, third, or fourth year : yet, as it is to be produced out of the profits of lands and tenements, as a recompene for being permitted to hold and enjoy them, it ought to be reerved yearly, becaue thoe profits do annually arie and are annually renewed. It mut iue out of the thing granted, and not be part of the land or thing itelf; wherein it differs from an exception in the grant, which is always of part of the thing granted. It mut, latly, iue out of lands and tenements corporeal; that is, from ome inheritance whereunto the owner or grantee of the rent may have recoure to ditrein. Therefore a rent cannot be reerved out of an advowon, a common, an office, a franchie, or the like. But a grant of uch annuity or um may operate as a peronal contract, and oblige the grantor to pay the money reerved, or ubject him to an action of debt ; though it doth not affect the inheritance, and is no legal rent in contemplation of law.

There [sic] are at common law three manner of rents; rent-ervice, rent-charge, and rent-eck. Rent-ervice is o called be- .