Tenure

The mode or system of holding lands or tenements in subordination to some superior, which, in the feudal ages, was the leading characteristic of reui property. Tenure ls the direct result of feudalism, which separated the dominium directum, (the dominion of the soll,) which is placed mediately or immediately in the crown, from the dominion utile, (the possessory title,) the right to the use and profits in the soil, designated by the term "seisin," which ls the highest interest a subject can acquire, Wharton. Wharton gives the following list of tenures which were ultimately developed: Lay Tenures. I. Frank tenement, or freehold.
(1) The military tenures (abolished, except grand serjeanty, and, reduced to free socage tenures) were; Knight service proper, or tenure in chivalry; grand serjeanty; cornage.
(2) Free socage, or glow-service; either petit serjeanty, tenure in urgage, or gavelkind. II. Villeinage.
(1) Pure villeinage, (whence copyholds at the lord's [nominal] will, which is regulated according to custom.)
(2) Privileged villeinage, sometimes calied "villein socage," (whence tenure in ancient demesne, which isan exalted species of copyhold, held according to custom, and not according to the lord's will,) and is of three kinds: Tenure in ancient demesne ; privileged copyholds, customary freeholds, or free copyholds; copyholds of base tenure. Spiritual Tenures. I. Frankalmoigne, or free alma II. Tenure by divine service. Tenure, in its general sense, ls a mode of holding or occupying. Thus, we speak of the tenure of an office, meaning the maimer in which it is held, especially with regard to time, (tenure for life, tenure during good behavior,) and of tenure of land in the sense of occupation or tenancy, especially with reference to cultivation and questions of political economy; e. g., tenure by peasant proprietors, cottiers, etc. Sweet. See Bard v. Grundy, 2 Ky. 169; People v. Waite, 9 Wend. (N. Y.) 58; Richman V. Lippincott, 29 N. J. Law, 59.

— Tenure by divine service. where an ecclesiastical corporation, sole or aggregate, holds land by a certain divine service; as, to say prayers on a certain day in every year, "or to distribute in aimes to an hundred poore men an hundred pence at such a day." Litt. § 137.

I. fr. and eng. A manner of holding; the mode of holding a feudal estate. In the law of England, the principle of tenure is still retained, it being a fundamental maxim that all the land in the kingdom is held, mediately or immediately, of the sovereign; but in the United Statps, while government is considered the source of all titles, and while the idea of tenure more or less pervades the real proi> erty law of the country, the principle of tenure, in the proper feudal sense, seems not to obtain, tenants in fee being to all intents and purposes the absolute owners of their estatea v. Allodial; Burgage tenure; Freehold; Grand serjeanty; Knight-service; Petty serjeanty; Socage; Villeinage. Tenure est la maniere par quoy les tene-

Holding; possession. See Tenere. Tenure of land. The manner of possessing land held of a superior, in consideration of services to be rendered.^ Simply, the mode of holding an estate in land. May import any kind of holding, from mere possession to owning the inheritance." Tenure is inseparable from the idea of property in land, according to the theory of the English law. All land in England is held mediately or immediately of the king. There_ are there no lands to which " tenure " does not strictly apply. So thoroughly does this notion pervade the common-law doctrine of real property that the king cannot grant land to which the resei-vation of tenure is not annexed. The idea also pervades, to a considerable extent, the law of realt/ln this country. The title to land is essentially allodial (a. v.), and every tenant in fee-simple has an absolute ' 2 Bl. Com. 298.. ' 2 Greenl. Ev. § 653. s Commonwealth t'. Wright, 1 Gush. 65 (1848); People V. Warner, 5 Wend. 273 (IfSO); 5 Blaekf. 458; 1 Mass. 203; 14 Ohio St. 61; 9 Yerg. 394; 1 East, 180; 7 Exch. 537, 661. ' Beeson u Beeson, 1 Harr. 472 (Del., 1830). and perfect title, yet, in technical language, his estate is called an estate in fee-simple, and the tenure free and common socage, q. v. This technical language is vei-y generally interwoven into the jurisprudence of the States, though no vestige ol! feudal tenure may remain.' See Feud. Tenure of oflace. The manner of holding or of exercising the duties of an ofiice; also, the duration or term of ofifice.2 The Constitution is silent^ with respect to the power of removal from office, where the tenure is not fixed. Offices not so fixed are held during good behavior, or during the life of the incumbent; or at the will of some department of the government, and subject to removal at pleasure. In the absence of express regulation the power of removal is incident to the power of appointment. The tenure of ancient common-law offices depended on ancient usage; but with us there is no ancient usage. 3 See Behavior; Office, 2. ' Tenure of Office Acts. The act of Congress of March 2, 1867 (14 St. L. 4.30), wiis repealed as to sections one and two, and amended, T)y act of April 5, 1869 (16 St. L. 6), and finally repealed entire by act of March 3, 1887 (24 St. L. 500) — the repeal not affecting '* any offlcer heretofore suspended " under R. S. §§ 1767-72, " or any designation, nomination, or appointment heretofore made by virtue of the provisions thereof." *

I. Allodial tenure is not properly tenure at all, being absolute ownership, as distinct from (II.) Feudal tenure; where lands were held of some superior lotd by services or rent; V. Feudum, Fee. Tenure differs, — A. According to the nature of the service. 1. Frank tenure or Freehold: by free services. This includes (a.) Knight-service, (b.) socage, (c.) spiritual, service, (a.) Knight-service, military tenure, tenure in chivalry, comprises knight-service proper, where lands were held by the service of attending the lord in war, furnishing armed men, horses, etc., or paying esctiage in commutation therefor; grand ser jeanty, a tenure of the Crown, by performing some special or personal service, which was not considered base because rendered to the King; and cornage, a kind of grand serjeanty, by winding a horn at the approach of the Scots or other enemies. All these tenures were abolished by the 12 Car. II. c. 34. (b.) Socage, service of the plough, comprising Free and common socage, by fixed, free agricultural services; usually rent, either in farm-produce or money; petty serjeanty, which was a socage tenure held of the Crown, by some small annual rent or render; burgage, a socage tenure in old boroughs, affected by local customs. In socage tenures the lands anciently descended to all the sons in common, which custom persisted in Kent; whence the Kentish socage tenure is called Gavelkind, (c.) Spiritual service; which included Frankalmoign and Divine service; v. Franhalmoign. 2. Base tenure or Vi Uenage; which was either pure or privileged according as the services, though base, were certain or uncertain. This only survived in copyhold tenures; v. Copyl Md, Cnstomary freehold. Ancient demesne. B. According to the lord of whom the land is held; as (a.) in capite, of the King, either ut de corona (as of the Crown) or wt de honore, in virtue of some honor, dignity, or manor of which the King was proprietor; (b.) of a mesne lord, the origin of one variety of base fee; (c.) of the lord of a manor, copyhold. C. According to the duration of the interest v. Estate, Tenant.

Holding. A term used in discussing and classifying the various rights in virtue of which a person may maintain, before the law, his occupancy and enjoyment of any thing. The word is chiefly used of the various rights in real property; but does not exclusively belong to that field: tenure of office is an equally proper legal expression, and signifies both manner of holding the office, and the duration or term. See People v. Waite, 9 Wend. 58. In real-property law, tenure is chiefly used of the English feudal tenures, or that system of holding lands or tenements in subordination to some superior, which, in the feudal times, was the leading characteristic of real property. The king, who was at once the source of property and the fountain of justice and honor, had bestowed large territories on the great barons who immediately surrounded the throne, and these again had distributed his bounty through the channels of their numerous dependants. In legal contemplation, at least, all the land-owners of the kingdom thus derived their estates. On this hypothesis, so consonant to the genius and history of feuds, the system of tenure was built, — a system which linked every feudatory, by a chain more or less extended, to the crown, and rendered his fief eventually liable to resumption by the sovereign power from which it had, or was assumed to have, originally emanated. The nature of the tenure, or, in other words, the manner in which lands were held, was characterized by appropriate terms; thus, lands held by the honorathe lord in the wars, &o. — were distinguished by the corresponding name of tenure by knight service (see Brown); lands held by rendering services in husbandry, or like services, or payments which could be made certain in amount (a privilege, in the estimation of many tenants, which outweighed the honor of the onerous and variable military service), were known by the name of tenure in socage; and there were other kinds, of less interest to American readers. For some brief general explanations of the introduction and incidents of these tenures, see Feud. Wharton gives the following list of tenures which were ultimately developed: Lay Tenures. I. Frank tenement, or freehold. 1. The military tenures (abolished, except grand sergeanty, and reduced to freesocage tenures) were: Knight service proper, or tenure in chivalry; grand sergeanty; cornage. 2. Free socage, or plough-service; either petit sergeanty, tenure in burgage, or gavelkind. II. Villeinage. 1. Pure villeinage (whence copyholds at the lord's (nominal) will, which is regulated according to custom). 2. Privileged villeinage, sometimes called villein socage (whence tenure in ancient demesne, which is an exalted species of copyhold, held according to custom, and not according to the lord's will), and is of three kinds: Tenure in ancient demesne; privileged copyholds, customary freehol(P, or free copyholds; copyholds of base tenure. Spiritual Tenures. I. Frankalmoigne, or free alms; II. Tenure by divine service. In England, the practical consequences and rules of law deduced from this theory of tenures have been largely modified in modern times; the system has been greatly simplified, and its burdens reduced; but the assumption or theory that every possessor of real property is a tenant in respect of that property, that he is to be considered as holding it of some superior lord, and law. To this system may also be referred the origin of the present freehold and copyhold tenures, into the one or the other of which nearly all the various tenures which existed during the feudal period have merged. Throughout the United States, the strong and general tendency has been to disclaim this theory or fiction of a holding from a superior as a basis of realproperty rights, and to re-establish the notion of allodial title, or absolute, independent ownership. The idea of tenure, in the feudal sense, however, pervades the law of landed property; and many of the terms derived from the English system are, with modified meanings, in general use. Under the word tenure is included every holding of an inheritance; but the signification of this word, which is a very extensive one, is usually restrained by coupling other words with it; tliis is sometimes done by words which denote the duration of the tenant's estate; as, if a man holds to himself and his heirs, it is called tenure in fee-simple. At other times, the tenure is coupled with the words pointing out the instrument by which an inheritance is held; thus, if the holding is by copy of court-roll, it is called tenure by copy of court-roll. At other times, this word is coupled with words that show the principal service by which an inheritance is held; as, where a man held by knight service, it was called tenure by knight service. Jacob. Tenure in capite, was an ancient tenure, whereby a man held lands of the king immediately as of the crown, whether by knight service or in socage. This tenure was likewise called tenure holding of the person of the king; and a person might hold of the king, and not in capite; that is, not immediately of the crown, but by means of some honor, castle, or manor belonging to it. According to Kitchen, one might hold land of the king by knight service, and not in capite; because it might be held of some honor in the king's hands, descended to him from his ancestors, and not immediately of the king, as of his crown. (Kitch. 129; Dyer, 44; Fitz. Nat. Brev. 5.) This ancient tenure in capite was of two sorts; the one principal and general, and the other special or subaltern. The principal and general was of the king, as caput regni, et caput generalissimum omnium feodorum, the fountain whence all feuds and tenures have their main original; the special was of a particular subject, as caput feudi, sen terrce illim, so called from his beingthe first that granted the land in such manner of tenure; from whence he was Car. II. ch. 24, all tenures are turned into free and common socage; so that tenures hereafter to be created by the king are to be in common socage only, and not by cajnte, knight service, &c. {Blount.) Jacob.

estates, is the manner in which lands or tenements are holden. According to the English law, all lands are held mediately or immediately from the king, as lord paramount and supreme proprietor of all the lands in the kingdom. Co. Litt. 1 b, 65 a; 2 Bl. Com. 105. The idea of tenure pervades, to a considerable degree, the law of real property in the several states; the title to land is essentially allodial, _ and every tenant in fee simple has an absolute‘and perfect title, yet, in technical language, his estate is called an estate in fee simple, and the tenure free and common socage. 3 Kent, Com. 289, 290. Vide Wright on Tenures; Bro. h. t.; Treatise of Feuds and Tenures by Knight’s service; 20 Vin. Ab. 201; Com. Dig. h.t.; 6 Bac. Ab. 484; Thom. Co. Litt. Index, h. t.; Sulliv. Lect. Index, h. t.