§ 351. Aids.-Aids were at first mere benevolences granted by the tenant to his lord in time of difficulty and distress, but in time they grew to be matters of right. There were three; to ransom the lord, to make his eldest son a knight, and to marry his eldest daughter.

§ 352. Relief.-Relief was a fine or sum of money exacted by the lord from the new tenant when the estate lapsed by the death of a former tenant.

§ 353. Primer seizin.-Primer seizin was a sum of money equal to a year's profits of the lands from the heirs of a tenant in capite (one holding immediately of the king), which the king exacted.

§ 354. Wardship.-Wardship gave gave the lord the custody of the lands and person of the tenant under age without being compelled to account for profits.

§ 355. Marriage.-Marriage was the right of the lord to select a husband or wife for his ward, and if his selection was rejected, he could recover whatever a jury would assess as damages, or as much as any one would bona fide give for the alliance.

§ 356. Fines.-Fine was sum exacted from a tenant for a license to sell part of his holding.

§ 357. Escheat.-Escheat was the resumption of the fee by the lord, when issue failed or where the estate was lost by the crime of the tenant.

Brave and spirited people became restive under these onerous burdens, and but for the statute of Charles II, above quoted, which abolished these exactions, the monarchy itself might have been subverted.

§ 358. Influence of feudal system.-Judge Cooley, speaking of tenures in America, says: "Although the feudal system never obtained much foothold in this country, there are many things in our law of real estate which require for their understanding that we bear in mind the fact that the American system is based upon the common law of England, and that that law grew up while the feudal system was in force. As lands in England were held under that system, and its maxims thoroughly pervaded the law of real estate, it was not to

be expected that when grants of land were made in this country under circumstances unknown in England, a new system of law with new terms and maxims would at once spring into existence to provide for the new condition of things and bearing no trace of the system which it supplanted."

§ 359. Early grants affected. As a matter of fact, however, the early grants in America were made with a reference to a continuation of something like a feudal tenure, and many incidents of that system attached themselves to these grants. The tenure prescribed was tenure in free and common socage, to be held of the king, as of some manor in England. When the colonies threw off allegiance to the crown, and became independent states, each of them succeeded to all the rights of the crown within its limits, while the United States as a sovereignty succeeded to all the rights of the crown to unoccupied territory not within the limits of any of the states and not previously conveyed.

$ 360. Revival of allodial tenure.-Being thus possessed of the vacant lands, the United States and the several individual states have proceeded to make sale and conveyance thereof and to give titles which, though called fees, are in truth allodial. At the same time the states by statutory and constitutional provisions have gradually abolished such of the feudal incidents as still attached to the estates previously granted by the crown, until, as Chancellor Kent says, 3 Com. 513, "By one of those singular revolutions incident to human affairs, allodial estates, once universal in Europe, and then almost universally exchanged for feudal tenures, have now, after the lapse of many centuries, regained their primitive estimation in the minds of freemen."

§ 361. Sovereignty as source of title.-In America as in England the sovereignty is recognized as the source of all title, and the state succeeds thereto in default of heirs; but this right is not peculiar to the feudal system; neither is eminent domain, which is sometimes referred to as a remaining incident of the feudal system.

§ 362. Estates.—An estate in lands, tenements and hereditaments signifies such interest as the tenant has therein. An estate is either for an uncertain period, as for life, for a certain period of years, or unlimited, as when it is vested in a man and his heirs forever, without mentioning what heirs. This last is an estate in fee simple, which is the largest estate a man can have in lands.

§ 363. Fee simple. The fee simple, or inheritance of lands, is generally vested in some person or other. Inferior estates may be carved out of it. One may have the fee simple, another may have a term for years, another may have a life estate, another may have the right of possession, another may be in actual possession, of the same land.

§ 364. Fee simple in abeyance.-A fee simple may be in abeyance, according to Blackstone, as where there is a grant to John for life, and afterwards to the heirs of Richard. The fee in such can not vest in the heirs of Richard till his death, because no one can be an heir of the living, and John has plainly a life estate only. The fee, therefore, is in abeyance while Richard lives. The inconvenience resulting from this notion has led some learned writers to repudiate it. Kent says that though the good sense of the thing and the weight of liberal doctrine are strongly opposed to the ancient notion of

15-Elem. Law.

an abeyance, the technical rule is that livery of seizin takes the reversion of the inheritance from the grantor, and leaves him no tangible or disposable interest. He cites Preston on Estates as insisting that an estate in freehold, depending on another estate of freehold and limited on a contingency, must be in abeyance.

§ 365. Use of word "heirs."-At common law, where it was intended to convey a fee simple estate by deed, the word "heirs" was essential. In many of the United States this strict rule has been abrogated by statute. In some states a form of deed is prescribed by statute, which prescribes what the effect may be. The short form in Indiana, which is in substance, "A conveys and warrants to B" certain land, describing it, is held to be sufficient to convey the land, with the appurtenances and hereditaments to the grantee, his heirs and assigns with covenants of seizin and warranty, as fully as if these words and the full covenants were written in the deed. A government grant in any form the legislature may prescribe will take effect according to the legislative intent. A grant to a sovereignty requires no words of inheritance. The strict rule requiring the use of the word "heirs," to create or convey a fee has no application to wills. Where the testator's intention to create an estate of inheritance is manifest from the whole will, it will be so construed. Some states have gone so far as to enact by statute that every devise of land shall be construed to convey a fee simple, unless it appears by express words that a less estate was intended. ·

In suits to compel the specific performance of agreements to convey land equity will sustain the right of a party asking a conveyance in fee where it appears to have been the intention of the parties to contract for a fee.