Gage

GAGER (Law Lat. vadium). Personal property placed by a debtor in possession of his creditor as a security for the paymoit of his debt; a pawn or pledge (g. v,). Granv. lib.

10, c. 6; Britton c.

27. mediaeval English law, was characterized by delivery of immediate possession to the gagee, who was then as in modem Umes a creditor who took the gage as a security. There were two forms, the usufruct gage and the propei'ty gage. The former included the vadium vivum and the vadium mortuum. The property gage Involved the feature of forfeiture, either (1) where the gagee received possession at once, but not px’oprietorship until default, and (2) where he acquired immediate proprietorship, terminable, however, upon payment of the debt by a certain day. In each case forfeiture followed default without reference to the relative values of the land and the debt. The modern Idea of a gage of land as a security for a debt, with possession in the debtor, was a development of the period after the Norman Conquest, In which there was so rapid a growth in English law of the tendency to foster the creation of credits and facilities for the use of all kinds of property as security for loans and debts. This change of the point of view was pari passu with the development of the more numerous and effective forms of actions and executions. The gage of property, whether real or personal, became the creation of a mere security by mortgage, pledge, or other Hen. As to the historical development of the gage of land, see two papers by H. D. Haseltlne in 17 Harv. L. Rev. 649, 18 id.

86 (3 Sel. Essays Anglo-Amer. L. H. 661).

To pledge; to wage.

Webster Diet

Gager is used both as noun and verb: e. g. gager del ley, wager of law; Jacobs; gager ley, to wage law; Britton c. 27; gager deliv-j eranoe, to put in sureties to deliver cattle* distrained; Termes de la Ley; Kitchen, fol.

145; Fltzh. N. B. fol. 67, 74.

Estates in gage are those held in vadio or pledge; vivum vadium is a vifgage or living pledge; a mortgage is mortuum vadium, a dead-gage or pledge; for, whatsoever profit it yields, it redeems not Itself, unless the whole amount secured is paid at the appointed time.

Cowell.