Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol II).djvu/98

 86 and that the ret of the ocage tenures dipered through England ecaped the general fate of other property, partly out of favour and affection to their particular owners, and partly from their own inignificancy; ince I do not apprehend the number of ocage tenures oon after the conquet to have been very coniderable, nor their value by any means large; till by ucceive charters of enfranchiement granted to the tenants, which are particularly mentioned by Britton, their number and value began to well o far, as to make a ditinct, and jutly envied, part of our Englih ytem of tenures.

this may be, the tokens of their feodal original will evidently appear from a hort comparion of the incidents and conequences of ocage tenure with thoe of tenure in chivalry; remarking their agreement or difference as we go along.

1. the firt place, then, both were held of uperior lords; of the king as lord paramount, and ometimes of a ubject or mene lord between the king and the tenant.

2. were ubject to the feodal return, render, rent, or ervice, of ome ort or other, which aroe from a uppoition of an original grant from the lord to the tenant. In the military tenure, or more proper feud, this was from it's nature uncertain; in ocage, which was a feud of the improper kind, it was certain, fixed, and determinate, (though perhaps nothing more than bare fealty) and o continues to this day.

3. were, from their contitution, univerally ubject (over and above all other renders) to the oath of fealty, or mutual bond of obligation between the lord and tenant. Which oath of fealty uually draws after it uit to the lord's court. And this oath every lord, of whom tenements are holden at this day, may and ought to call upon his tenants to take in his court baron; if it be only for the reaon given by Littleton, that if it be ne- Rh