104 ON SOME ANCIENT BURTON MANUSCRIPTS. 
you know that when a piece of freehold land is conveyed to a 
person on purchase now-a-days, what takes place is this: the 
purchaser pays down the purchase money, and then the seller 
delivers to the purchaser a deed signed and sealed by himself and 
all other persons interested in the land, and in consequence 
thereof the purchaser becomes the owner of this land. Nothing 
more is required to make this purchaser the owner of the land. 
But the new owner generally wishes to take possession of his newly 
acquired estate. Either he goes and farms or otherwise occupies 
it himself, or, if it is being occupied by tenants, he gives notice 
to them of his purchase, and demands payment to him of all rent 
becoming due in future. If he neglects these, as I may call them, 
precautions, we all should class him, and justly too, as a Simple 
Simon. But, observe, there is no formal or prescribed method of 
taking possession; and, observe further, there must be a deed 
executed by the seller to the purchaser. You cannot convey free- 
hold land now-a-days by an agreement merely, or by word of mouth, 
there must be a document under seal. But in the days about 
which I am speaking, land could be conveyed without writing of 
any kind, the only necessary formality was that Aossession of the 
land must be delivered by the seller to the purchaser in a formal 
and prescribed manner. It was not till the year 1676, more than 
150 years later than the date of any of these old deeds, that 
writing was made necessary to the possessing of a freehold estate. 
This was done by a well-known Act, called the ‘“‘Statute of Frauds.” 
This act of delivering possession was called ‘‘ livery of seisin,” se¢s¢z 
being the old name for Jossession and receipt of rents and profits ; 
so that in those days in order to convey an estate of freehold upon 
a person, all that you had to do was to give him “ livery of seisin ” 
in the prescribed form. It was not until the year 1845, or only 
forty-six years ago, that this act of ‘‘ livery of seisin” was actually 
dorle away with. Until that year, on a direct conveyance of 
freeholds, it was actually necessary to go through that antiquated 
and then useless, ceremony. It is true that for centuries it had 
been possible, by more or less circuitous modes of conveyancing, 
to dispense with this ceremony. Now “livery of seisin” was 
