100 
attended with great pomp and expenses, when fifteen years of 
age; and to marry the eldest daughter by giving her a portion. 
The second service was relief, a fine payable by the heir to 
the lord. 
Third. Primer seisin, or the lord’s right to a year’s profits from 
the heir, if of age. 
Fourth. Wardship, or the right of the lord to the custody of 
the heir during minority, without having to account for the profits, 
and subject only to the infant’s bare maintenance. 
Fifth. Fines or sums payable to the lord on the sale of 
property. 
Sixth, Escheat, which was a species of reversion : for, if the 
tenant died without heirs of his blood, or if he had committed 
treason or felony, the mutual bond between the lord and such 
tenant was dissolved ; and, the tenure being determined, the land 
resulted back to the lord who gave it. 
Grand-serjeanty was another species of frank-tenure, by which 
the tenant was bound, instead of serving the king generally in the 
wars, to do him some special, certain, and honorary service. 
Cornage was a species of grand-serjeanty, the service of which was 
to sound a horn when the Scots or other enemies came over the 
Border. All these military tenures were abolished by Statute of 12 
Charles II., and turned into free or common socage, derived from 
the Latin soca, meaning plough service, and now commonly called 
freehold. But by this Act the tenures in frankalmoign, copyhold, 
customary freehold, and the honorary services (without the slavish 
part) of grand-serjeanty are preserved. And this brings us to the 
second of the two great classes into which lay tenements were 
divided, viz :— 
VILLENAGE. 
And I must beg you to understand, however distasteful it may 
be, that copyholds and customary freeholds were of this tenure. 
Yes, landed proprietors here were formerly all villeins of greater or 
less magnitude. Now villenage was divided into pure villenage 
and privileged villenage. Pure villenage was the origin of our 
ss 
