CHAPTER IV.

SEISIN.

LIT., § 324. Also, when a man will shew a feoffement made to him, or a gift in taile, or a lease for life of any lands or tenements, ther he shal say, by force of which feoffement, gift, or lease, he was seised, &c., but where one will plead a lease or grant made to him of a chatell real or personal, ther he shal say, by force of which he was possessed, &c.

Co. LIT., 153, a. "Seisin," or seison, is common aswel to the English, as to the French, and signifies in the common law possession, whereof seisina, a Latin word, is made, and seisire, a verbe.

ID., 200, b. Seisin is a word of art, and in pleading is onely applied to a freehold at least, as possesse for distinction sake is to a chattell reall or personall. As if B. plead a feoffement in fee, he concludeth, virtute cujus praedict. B. fuit seisitus, &c. But if he plead a lease for yeares, he pleadeth, virtute cujus praedictus B. intravit, et fuit inde possessionatus; and so of chattells personalls, virtute cujus fuit inde possessionatus.

And this holdeth not only in case of lands or tenements which lie in liverie, but also of rents, advowsons, commons, &c., and other things that lie in grant, whereof a man hath an estate for life or inheritance.

Also when a man pleads a lease for life, or any higher estate which passeth by liverie, he is not to plead any entrie, for he is in actuall seisin by the liverie itselfe. Otherwise it is of a lease for yeares, because there he is not actually possessed untill an entrie.

ID., 266, b. Seisin is a technical term denoting the

completion of that investiture by which the tenant was admitted into the tenure, and without which no freehold could be constituted or pass. It is a word common as well to the French as to the English law. It is either in deed, which is, when the person has the actual seisin or possession; or in law, when after a descent the person on whom the lands descend has not actually entered and the possession continues vacant, not being usurped by another. When lands of inheritance are carved into different estates, the tenant of the freehold in possession, and the persons in remainder or reversion, are equally in the seisin of the fee. But in opposition to what may be termed the expectant nature of the seisin of those in remainder or reversion, the tenant in possession is said to have the actual seisin of the lands. The fee is entrusted to him. By any act which amounts to a disaffirmance by him of the title of those in the reversion, he forfeits his estate, and any act of a stranger which disturbs. his estate is a disturbance of the whole fee. Disseisin seems to imply the turning the tenant out of his fee, and usurping his place and relation.-Butler's note, 217.

POLL. & W., POSSESSION, 47-49. Possession of land is of two kinds. Seisin signifies in the common law possession, but one cannot be seised, in the language of modern lawyers, f as of any interest less than freehold.

Where a tenant occupies a close under a lease for years, the tenant has possession of the close, so that not only a stranger, but the freeholder himself, may be guilty of a trespass against him, but the freeholder is still seised, or, as the judges could say as late as 1490, possessed, of the freehold. The fundamental maxim that there cannot be two possessions of the same thing at the same time is evaded, successfully or not, by treating the land itself and the reversion as different things. Mr. F. W. Maitland's research has thrown much light on this curious compromise between incompatible ideas. He has shown by abundant examples that in the thirteenth century seisin and possession were absolutely synony

mous terms, and that as late as the fifteenth century seisin of chattels was commonly spoken of in pleading. But as early as the thirteenth century the introduction of tenantfarming raised for thinking English lawyers the question who had possession, the landlord or the tenant. Bracton, following Roman authority and the Roman distinction between possidere, i.e., possession in law, and in possessione esse, i.e., physical possession, in one passage boldly said of the tenant-farmer "talis non possidet licet fuerit in seisina ;' he is like a bailiff or servant. But in another passage, which is followed by Fleta, we find the theory of a double seisin : "poterit enim quilibet illorum sine praeiudicio alterius in seisina esse eiusdem tenementi, unus ut de termino et alius ut de feodo vel libero tenemento." . . . In any case, practical need carried the day. It would not do to say that the freeholder had parted with his seisin, for that would have cut him off from using in support of his title the convenient possessory remedies given by the assize of novel disseisin and other actions of the same class. According to the later authorities, though a man who has made a lease for years. "cannot of right meddle with the demesne nor the fruits thereof," he may have an assize if the termor is ejected, and may plead that he was seised in his demesne as of fee. It would not do to say that the farmer had no possession, for he, too, must have an effectual remedy against intruders; if he is not exactly disseised when he is disturbed without right it is somethnig very like it. . Thus it was set

tled that the lessee had a kind of seisin and yet the lessor did not lose the seisin which he had before. It must be remembered that gradations of freehold tenure had already made men familiar with the conception of the lord being seised of rent and service while the tenant was seised of the land itself. Not before Littleton's time (if so early) it became the usage to confine the term seisin to estates of freehold; and accordingly we have a double terminology, corresponding to a double set of rights, and (so long as the real actions were in practical use) also of remedies.

2 POLL. & MAIT., HIST. ENG. LAW, 29. In the history of our law there is no idea more cardinal than that of seisin. Even in the law of the present day it plays a part which must be studied by every lawyer; but in the past it was so important that we may almost say that the whole system of our land law was law about seisin and its consequences.

ID., 39. On the whole we may say that the possession of f

land which the law protects under the name of a "seisin of freehold" is the occupation of land by one who has come to it otherwise than as tenant in villeinage, tenant at will, tenant for term of years or guardian, that occupation being exercised by himself, his servants, guardians, tenants in villeinage, tenants at will, or tenants for term of years. This seems the best statement of the matter-occupation of land is seisin of free tenement unless it has been obtained in one of certain particular ways. If, however, we prefer to look at the other side of the principle, we may say that the animus required of the person who is "seised of free tenement" is the intent to hold that land as though he were tenant for life or tenant in fee holding by some free tenure.

II. The Feudal Tenures.

CHAPTER I.

THE FREEHOLD TENURES.

BRACTON, 207. Mention is sometimes made of a free tenement by way of distinction from that which is held in villeinage, for of tenements some are free and some are villein tenements.

Also of free tenements some are held freely by homage and military service, some are held in free socage by fealty alone, or, as some say, by fealty and homage. Also of free tenements some are held in absolute and free and perpetual alms; these indeed are as much the property of man as of God, for they are given not only to God and to such a church, but to the abbots and priors who there serve God. There is also the tenement which is given by the tenure of free alms to the rectors of churches, of which there are two kinds, one more absolute and free than the other. One is given by way of endowment at the dedication of the church, and the other after dedication.

ID., 37. Also a person may be enfeoffed by another to hold by rendering different kinds of services; for instance, by the service of paying one penny, and rendering scutage, and by one or more kinds of personal service. Hence, if the service consists only in paying money, and there be no scutage or serjeanty, or if the tenant be bound to two different things disjunctively, for instance, to give a certain thing in lieu of all service, or a certain sum in money, in