100 ON SOME ANCIENT BURTON MANUSCRIPTS. 
analogous to our modern way of paying a premium on taking a 
lease. 3rd.—Wardship. If the heir on succeeding were under 
age, his lord had the custody of the body and lands of the heir 
until, in case of males, the age of twenty-one years was attained: in 
the case of females, the age of sixteen years, and the lord had to 
render no account of his stewardship. 4th.-—d/arriage. The lord 
had the right of nominating a husband or a wife, as the case might 
be, for his infant wards ; and if a suitable match were declined, 
the ward had to forfeit to the lord a sum of money equal to the 
value of the match. 
It will be seen that these “ incidents ” were very valuable to any 
chief lord of a fee. 
There were other incidents to which tenants-in-chief of the 
Crown were liable, to which tenants of other lords were not liable, 
but time fails to go into these. 
Now, a tenant-in-chief of the Crown, especially one who had a 
large fief or fee, naturally let off, as it were, all land that he could 
spare to his own tenants, and these became “zs vassals, took the 
oath of fealty, made declaration of homage, and became liable to 
rent-service and incidents to the chief lord, in much the same way 
as the chief lord was liable to the Crown. And this second lot of 
tenants, as I may call them, in turn became overlords to THEIR 
own tenants, and so on as far as the extent of the land and other 
circumstances would allow. I will show you a plan which I have 
made of the working of this style of tenancies, and which, I hope, 
will make the matter plain. 
But you must not think that all the land of the country was let 
out on this particular kind of tenure. Besides the tenure of 
knight-service, land was let on what was called the tenure of “ free 
and common socage.” This tenure was not liable to knight-service. 
The ‘‘free and common socage ” tenant does not appear to have 
taken the oath of fealty, but he made the declaration of homage, 
and, instead of joining in his lord’s wars, he seems to have paid a 
yearly rent in money, and he was liable to most of the knight’s 
incidents. These two tenancies, knight-service and free and 
common socage, were called the “free” tenures—that is, they 
