40 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE [x. 



on the death of a vassal, the feud shall be divided 

 equally among his sons. 



With regard to the origin of primogeniture in 

 England, it should not be forgotten that, as Eng- 

 land received the feudal institutions from the Nor- 

 mans, so the Normans had previously adopted them 

 in imitation of the French ; who had established 

 feudalism, throughout the greater part of France, in 

 the latter half of the ninth century, not long before 

 the permanent settlement of Normandy under Hollo. 

 Now in France primogeniture has prevailed in the 

 succession of feudal grants, and it is probable there- 

 fore, that in the history of that country there are to 

 be found the main causes from which the custom pro- 

 ceeded, and it appears, to have been adopted with 

 other feudal institutions by the Normans from the 

 French, and by the English after the Norman inva- 

 sion, as a part of the body of laws which they accepted 

 almost in its entirety. 1 In like manner, at rather a 

 later period, Scotland voluntarily embraced feudalism 

 in imitation of England, and also established the rule 

 of primogeniture, and with slight modifications, the 

 other English rules of succession to land. 



The inconveniences always attending an actual 

 division of the land would be enhanced, when it was 



1 We find that according to the fitablisscmcnts de VEclciqni<'r tl<'. 

 Normandie (Paris, 1839), p. 9, the eldest son succeeded to the 

 "fief of the hauberk" to the exclusion of his brothers but the 

 date of this rule is uncertain. 



