Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol II).djvu/95

 Ch. 6. military etablihment, as the tenure in chivalry was. And here alo we have again an intance, where a tenure is confeedly in ocage, and yet could not poibly have ever been held by plough-ervice; ince the tenants mut have been citizens or burghers, the ituation frequently a walled town, the tenement a ingle houe; o that none of the owners was probably mater of a plough, or was able to ue one, if he had it. The free ocage therefore, in which thee tenements are held, eems to be plainly a remnant of Saxon liberty; which may alo account for the great variety of cutoms, affecting thee tenements o held in antient burgage: the principal and mot remarkable of which is that called Borough-Englih, o named in contraditinction as it were to the Norman cutoms, and which is taken notice of by Glanvil, and by Littleton ; viz. that the younget on, and not the eldet, ucceeds to the burgage tenement on the death of his father. For which Littleton gives this reaon; becaue the younget on, by reaon of his tender age, is not o capable as the ret of his brethren to help himelf. Other authors have indeed given a much tranger reaon for this cutom, as if the lord of the fee had antiently a right to break the eventh commandment with his tenant's wife on her wedding night; and that therefore the tenement decended not to the eldet, but the younget, on; who was more certainly the offspring of the tenant. But I cannot learn that ever this cutom prevailed in England, though it certainly did in Scotland, (under the name of mercheta or marcheta) till abolihed by Malcolm III. And perhaps a more rational account than either may be fetched (though at a ufficient ditance) from the practice of the Tartars; among whom, according to father Duhalde, this cutom of decent to the younget on alo prevails. That nation is compoed totally of hepherds and herdmen; and the elder ons, as oon as they are capable of leading a patoral life, migrate from their father with a certain allotment of cattle; and go to eek a new habitation. The younget on Rh