Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol II).djvu/87

 Ch. 5. cutages or ecuage hould be taken as they were ued to be taken in the time of Henry II; that is, in a reaonable and moderate manner. Yet afterwards by tatute 25 Edw. I. c. 5 & 6. and many ubequent tatutes it was enacted, that the king hould take no aids or taks but by the common aent of the realm. Hence it is held in our old books, that ecuage or cutage could not be levied but by conent of parliament ; uch cutages being indeed the groundwork of all ucceeding ubidies, and the land-tax of later times.

therefore ecuage differed from knight-ervice in nothing, but as a compenation differs from actual ervice, knight-ervice is frequently confounded with it. And thus Littleton mut be undertood, when he tells us, that tenant by homage, fealty, and ecuage was tenant by knight-ervice: that is, that this tenure (being ubervient to the military policy of the nation) was repected as a tenure in chivalry. But as the actual ervice was uncertain, and depended upon emergences, o it was neceary that this pecuniary compenation hould be equally uncertain, and depend on the aements of the legilature uited to thoe emergences. For had the ecuage been a ettled invariable um, payable at certain times, it had been neither more nor les than a mere pecuniary rent; and the tenure, intead of knight-ervice, would have then been of another kind, called ocage, of which we hall peak in the next chapter.

the preent, I have only to oberve, that by the degenerating of knight-ervice, or peronal military duty, into ecuage, or pecuniary aements, all the advantages (either promied or real) of the feodal contitution were detroyed, and nothing but the hardhips remained. Intead of forming a national militia compoed of barons, knights, and gentlemen, bound by their interet, their honour, and their oaths, to defend their king and Rh