dower and of curtesy, whereby estates are divided, so that one person takes the estate for a limited part of its existence, and another person is to take the part that remains. This is the division of the estate itself, as distinguished from a division of the land, wherein the estate exists. And here it may be remarked again, that where the owner of an estate conveys a part of his estate to another, his conveyance operates as a lease, and what is left in him is known as the reversion. But should he at the same time and as a part of the same transaction convey the part of the estate left to another, his conveyance operates as an assignment of the parts respectively, and the party last to have possession is said to have the remainder. If, however, there be two independent arrangements, the first leaves the reversion in the grantor, and the second merely transfers the reversion; and the result is the creation of a new estate instead of a division of the old one. A reversion and a remainder are unlike in this respect also. Between the owner of the reversion and the immediate tenant there is the connection by tenure ;-that is, the latter holds by a contract of which he is the party of the second part, and the former is the party of the first part. In relation to each other, the former is regarded as the proprietor or owner of the land, and the latter as in possession under him. But between the owner of the remainder and the tenant in possession, there is no tenure and no relation. In relation to each other, each has, in his part of the estate, the absolute property. Both hold their rights under the same lease and of the same landlord; in other words, under the same contract, of which some third party, who is the reversioner of the estate, is the party of the first part, and the tenant in possession and the remainder-man are parties of the second part, holding their rights severally and to be enjoyed in possession severally and successively.

Williams on Real Prop. 205; 2 Bl. Com. 164; Co. Litt. 143; Litt. sec. 60.

2. The statutes of New York have attempted some changes in the nomenclature of reversions and remainders. They

provide that estates, as respects the time of their enjoyment, shall be divided into estates in possession, and estates in expectancy.-(1 R. S. 722, 3, §§ 7, 8 and 9.) The first class is made to include all estates of which the owner has the immediate right of possession; and the second, all estates, where the right of possession is postponed to a future period. They then divide the last named class into future estates and reversions. A future estate is defined to be an estate limited to commence in possession at a future day, either without the intervention of a precedent estate, or on the determination, by lapse of time or otherwise, of a precedent estate, created at the same time. And it is further provided that where a future estate is dependent on a precedent estate, it may be termed a remainder, and may be created and transferred by that name.

Hawley v. James, 5 Paige, 466.

The provisions of the Revised Statutes upon this subject have done but little, if anything more than to change the nomenclature of the common law, excepting in one particular. By the common law, an estate of the freehold class could not be created to commence in possession at a future day, because, it was necessary for the creation of that class of estates, that the grant should be attended by an actual delivery of possession to the grantee, or, in the language of the law, by livery of seisin. Estates less than freehold were not embraced in that rule, because livery of seisin was not necessary to their creation.-(2 Platt on Leases, 52.) This distinction between the two classes of estates was abolished by a section of the Revised Statutes, which provides that a freehold estate as well as a chattel real, may be created to commence at a future day.

1 R. S. 724, § 24.

Future estates are further divided oy statute into vested and contingent. They are vested, when there is a person in being, who would have an immediate right to the possession of the lands, upon the ceasing of the intermediate or precedent estate. They are contingent, whilst the person to whom,

or the event upon which they are limited to take effect, remains uncertain.-(1 R. S. 723, § 13.) That division is. substantially the division of the common law.

Campbell v. Rawdon, 18 N. Y. 418; 2 Bl. Com. 170; Williams

on Real Prop. 197, 217; 4 Kent, 202.

The manner of limiting estates in remainder and the restrictions imposed in regard thereto, will be more appropriately examined in connection with another department of the laws of real property.

3. Tenure is a word used to express the idea that lands are held by contract of some one who has an ultimate and superior right to the premises. Literally, it simply means a holding.

5 Bl. Com. 59, 105; Bouvier's Law Dic.; Williams on Real Prop. 5, 16.

It can hardly be correct to say that it signifies the manner of holding. Strictly, it signities merely the fact of holding. Additional terms were used in connection with the word tenure to indicate the manner of holding. There was first a division of tenures into two classes, namely, tenure by knight service, sometimes called military tenure, and tenure in socage. There were many subdivisions of tenures in socage; but all kinds of tenures were regarded as embraced within one or the other of the two general classes. According to Littleton, there were no others.

Litt. sec. 118; Co. Litt. 86 a.

FIRST: Tenure by knight service, was the holding of lands subject to the performance ot certain military services when called upon by the lord. Hence it is frequently styled in the books, military tenure. The ancient manors of England had always a certain portion of land set apart and held by tenants who were bound to attend the lord to the wars for a certain number of days in the year at the direction of the lord. The usual time seems to have been limited to forty days in the year, for a quantity of land known as a knight's fee. This class of tenants was regarded as the most honorable of all the tenants of the manor.

2 Bl. Com. 62, 63.

There were also other burdens incident to this kind of tenure, namely: aids, relief, primier seisin, wardships, marriage, and fines for alienation. Aids seem to have been, originally, mere acts of gratuity and benevolence, depending entirely upon the feelings of respect and kindness assumed to be due from the tenant to his lord. In time, they grew to be obligations, which were rigorously exacted and enforced.

There were several occasions in the vicissitudes and exigencies of the lord when the tenant was required to render aids : 1. When the lord was taken prisoner by his enemies, his military tenants were forced to contribute the necessary means to procure his release or ransom; and when from extravagance or profligacy, or any other cause, he became involved in debt, they were called upon to help pay his debts. 2. They were required to contribute to make the lord's oldest son a knight, when the lad became fifteen years old. 3. They were also required on the marriage of the lord's oldest daughter to make up for her a wedding portion.

Relief was a sum exacted of the heir upon his taking possession of the estate or tenancy. On the death of the tenant, if the heir was twenty-one years old, he was subject to this imposition as the price of the inheritance. In the reign of Henry Second, the amount was fixed at one hundred shillings for every knight's fee.

Primier seisin was a burthen imposed only upon the king's immediate tenants. When such a tenant died seized of a knight's fee, his heir was bound to pay the whole of the income of the lands for one year, if he was in possession personally, and one-half when the premises were held under him by a tenant for life. The character of this burden did not materially differ from a relief, and neither was due, except the heir was of full age. In the case of a male heir under the age of twenty-one, and of a female under fourteen, the lord was entitled to the wardship of the heir, and was styled the guardian in chivalry. As such guardian he had the custody of the person and the lands of the heir, without accounting for the profits until the male heir was twenty-one years

old and the female sixteen. He also had controlling authority over his ward in regard to marriage. He could offer a suitable marriage, and when refused, had the right to retain from the property of the ward such sum as a jury should assess as the value of the alliance; and upon the marriage of the ward without consent of the guardian, the forfeiture was double that amount.

Fines for alienation were burdens incident to a tenancy held of the king. Upon the transfer of his estate, the tenant must procure a license from the king; and if he conveyed without the license, he was required to pay the king an amount equal to one-third of the yearly value of the lands. This seems also to have been one of the incidental burdens of a fee held of a mesne lord up to the time of the statute quia emptores, in the reign of Edward the First. By that statute, the tenants of the manor lords obtained the right to transfer their estates in fee at their pleasure.

Those were the chief incidental burdens attached to tenure by knight's services. They were imposed by the laws of tenure, and not by any express provision of the contracts. It was only necessary to make a lease in fee, and the law of feuds imposed the burdens. The obligations were embraced in the feudal contract, because the feudal law was to be read as a part of the contract. Tenure by knight service has been called a strict and regular feud, or feud proper, because the obligations of service were not expressly named in the contract, but existed only by the operation of the law of feuds, and because of the character of the service.

SECOND: Tenure in socage. In the manorial arrangement, there was a part of the premises appropriated to a class of tenants who, in return therefor, performed certain services, other than military, or delivered to the lord a fixed quantity of the products of the land as a rent. This class of tenants embraced those who were the actual workers, the men who plowed and tilled the grounds which they occupied. They held by what was called tenure in socage. Indeed, all lands held by certain services of any kind or character, except