IX. Annuities. tenance. In lieu of which (especially when due from ecclesiastical persons) a pension or sum of money is sometimes substituted. And these may be reckoned another species of incorporeal hereditaments; though not chargeable on, or issuing from, any corporeal inheritance, but only charged on the person of the owner in respect of such his inheritance. To these may be added IX. Annuities, which are much of the same nature, only that these arise from temporal, as the former from spiritual, persons. An annuity is a thing very distinct from [ 41 ] a rent-charge, with which it is frequently confounded: a rent-charge being a burthen imposed upon and issuing out of lands, whereas an annuity is a yearly sum chargeable only upon the person of the grantor." Therefore, if a man by deed grant to another the sum of 201. per annum, without expressing out of what lands it shall issue, no land at all shall be charged with it; but it is a mere personal annuity: which is of so little account in the law, that, if granted to an eleemosynary corporation, it is not within the statutes of mortmain; and yet a man may have a real estate in it, though his security is merely personal. By Stat. 4 Will. IV. c. 22, s. 2, all annuities made payable at fixed periods, under any instrument executed after the passing of this act, (16th of June, 1834,) shall be apportioned, so that on the death of the person entitled thereto a proportionate part of the annuity shall become payable to his representatives." X. Rents are the last species of incorporeal hereditaments. The word rent or render, reditus, signifies a compensation or return, it being the nature of an acknowledgment given for the possession of some corporeal inheritance. It is defined to be a certain profit issuing yearly out of lands and tenements corporeal. It must be a profit; yet there is no occasion for it to be, as it usually is, a sum of money: for spurs, capons, horses, corn, and other matters may be rendered, and frequently are rendered, by way of rent. It may also consist in X. Rents, requisites of. Finch Law. 162. w Co. Litt. 144. x Ibid. 2. See post 44, and ch. 32. 2 Co. Litt. 144. a Co. Litt. 142. services or manual operations; as, to plough so many acres of ground, to attend the king or the lord to the wars, and the like; which services in the eye of the law are profits. This profit must also be certain; or that which may be reduced to a certainty by either party. It must also issue yearly; though there is no occasion for it to issue every successive year: but it may be reserved every second, third, or fourth year: yet, as it is to be produced out of the profits of lands and tenements, as a recompense for being permitted to hold or enjoy them, it ought to be reserved yearly, because those profits do annually arise and are annually renewed. It must issue out of the thing granted, and not be a part of the land or thing itself; wherein it differs from an exception in the grant, which is always of part of the thing granted. It must, lastly, issue out of lands and tenements corporeal; that is, from some inheritance whereunto the [42] owner or grantee of the rent may have recourse to distrain. Therefore a rent cannot be reserved out of an advowson, a common, an office, a franchise, or the like;" (although it may be out of tithes, with all properties of rent, except distress). But a grant of such annuity or sum may operate as a personal contract, and oblige the grantor to pay the money reserved, or subject him to an action of debt: though it doth not affect the inheritance, and is no legal rent in contemplation of law. There are at common law three manner of rents of three rent-service, rent-charge, and rent-seck. Rent-service service. is so called because it hath some corporeal service incident to it, as at the least fealty or the feudal oath of fidelity. For, if a tenant holds his lands by fealty, and ten shillings rent; or by the service of ploughing the lord's land, and five shillings rent; these pecuniary rents being connected with personal services, are therefore called rent service. And for these, in case they be behind, or arrear, at the day appointed, the lord may distrain of common right, without reserving any special kinds rent Rent-seck. power of distress; provided he hath in himself the reversion or future estate of the lands and tenements, after the lease or particular estate of the lessee or grantee is expired." Rent-charge. A rent-charge, is where the owner of the rent hath no future interest, or reversion expectant in the land, but is entitled by force of an express contract to distrain; as where a man by deed maketh over to others his whole estate in fee simple, with a certain rent payable thereout, and adds to the deed a covenant or clause of distress, that if the rent be arrear, or behind, it shall be lawful to distrain for the same. In this case the land is liable to the distress, not of common right, but by virtue of the clause in the deed: and therefore it is called a rentcharge, because in this manner the land is charged with a distress for the payment of it. Rent-seck, reditus siccus, or barren rent, is in effect nothing more than a rent reserved by deed, but without any clause of distress. By stat. 4 W. IV. c. 22, s. 2, all rent-service reserved, or any lease by a tenant for life, or for any life interest, or by any lease granted under any power, which leases shall have been granted after the passing of the act, (16th June, 1834,) and all rent-charges, and other rents made payable at fixed periods, under any instrument executed after the passing of the act, shall be apportioned so that on the death of the person entitled thereto, a proportionate part of the rent shall become payable to his representatives. It has been held that this statute does not apply to rents payable by tenants from year to year, which have not been reserved by instruments in writing. Other species of rents. k There are also other species of rents, which are reducible to these three. Rents of assise are the certain established rents of the freeholders and ancient copyholders of a manor,' which cannot be departed from or varied. Those of the freeholders are frequently called chief rents, reditus capitales; and both sorts are indif ferently denominated quit rents, quieti reditus; because thereby the tenant goes quit and free of all other services. h Litt. s. 213, &c. 1 Co. Litt. 143. k In re Markby, 4 Myl. and C. 485, and see Michell v. Michell, 4 Bea. 549. 1 2 Inst. 19. When these payments were reserved in silver or white money, they were anciently called white-rents, or blanchfarms, reditus albi, in contradistinction to rents reserved in work, grain, or baser money, which were called reditus nigri or black mail." Rack-rent is only a rent of the full value of the tenement, or near it. A fee-farm rent is a rent issuing out of an estate in fee; of at least one fourth of the value of the lands, at the time of its reservation;° for a grant of lands, reserving so considerable a rent, is indeed only letting lands to farm in fee simple instead of the usual methods for life or years. now abo is payable. These are the general divisions of rent; but the dif- Differences ference between them (in respect to the remedy for re- lished. covering them) is now abolished; and all persons may have the like remedy by distress for rents seck, rents of assise, and chief-rents, as in case of rents reserved upon lease.P Rent is regularly due and payable upon the land from Where rent whence it issues, if no particular place is mentioned in the reservation : but, in case of the king, the payment must be either to his officers at the exchequer, or to his receiver in the country. And, strictly, the rent is demandable and payable before the time of sun-set of the day whereon it is reserved; though perhaps not absolutely due till midnight. By stat. 3 & 4 W. IV. c. 27, s. 42, no arrears of rent shall be recovered by distress or suit, but within six years after the same shall have become due; but by stat. 3 & 4 W. IV. c. 42, s. 3, all actions of debts for rent, on an indenture of demise, must be commenced within ten years after the end of that session, or twenty years after the cause of action. On these apparently conflicting enactments, it has been held, that as to an action for rent, on an indenture of demise, the latter act (having last received the royal assent (must prevail." m In Scotland this kind of small payment is called blanch-holding, or reditus alba firma. See Bradbury v. Wright, Dougl. 604, note 1, as to the definition of a fee-farm rent. n 2 Inst. 19. • Co. Litt. 143 b. P Stat. 4 G. 2, c. 28. a Co. Litt. 201. r 4 Rep. 73. $ Co. Litt. 302; 1 Anders. 253. "Paget v. Foley, 2 Bing. N. C. 679. Hoda Jer. A conditional stipend or reward [ 44 ] A general acquaintance with the na trine of feuds, or the feudal law, necessary. CHAPTER THE FOURTH. OF THE FEUDAL SYSTEM. It is impossible to understand, with any degree of accuture and doe- racy, either the civil constitution of this kingdom, or the laws which regulate its landed property, without some general acquaintance with the nature and doctrine of feuds, or the feudal law: a system so universally received throughout Europe, upwards of twelve centuries ago, that Sir Henry Spelman does not scruple to call it the law of nations in our western world. This Chapter will be therefore dedicated to this inquiry. And though, in the course of our observations in this and many other parts of the present book, we may have occasion to search pretty highly into the antiquities of our English jurisprudence, yet surely no industrious student will imagine his time misemployed, when he is led to consider that the obsolete doctrines of our laws are frequently the foundation upon which what remains is erected; and that it is impracticable to comprehend many rules of the modern law, in a scholar-like scientifical manner, without having recourse to the ancient. Nor will these researches be altogether void of rational entertainment as well as use as in viewing the majestic ruins of Rome or Athens, of Balbec or Palmyra, it administers both pleasure and instruction to compare them with the draughts of the same edifices in their pristine proportion and splendour. [ 45 ] I ts origin. : The constitution of feuds had its original from the military policy of the northern or Celtic nations, the Goths, the Huns, the Franks, the Vandals, and the Lombards, who all migrating from the same officina gentium, a Of Parliaments, 57 b See Spelman of feuds, and Wright of tenures, per tot. |