338 = 72 
English Land Laic. 
when his tenure or holding commenced. This tenure, rendered 
uniform in its character by a statute passed on the accession of 
Charles II. after the Restoration (12 Car. 2, c. 24), has gradually 
become of little importance in its present effect ; but, as the 
foundation upon which the whole of the English land law has 
been built, it can never be entirely disregarded. It is indeed 
difficult to believe that two hundred years ago the burdens anc 
liabilities involved in it were grave in their character, anc 
general in their operation ; and to a generation which enjoys th( 
free possession of the soil, emancipated from the shackles whicl 
so long impeded the development of its resources, the evils whicl 
their ancestors were compelled to tolerate are scarcely knowi 
except by tradition, or by the imprints they have left upon th 
laws under which their substance has passed away. 
Right of alien- The great bulk of the soil of England, comprised in the fie) 
ation of land. qj. holdings thus created by the Sovereign's pleasure, wa 
originally alienable under peculiar conditions. The right whic 
the original tenant possessed was not passed on in its entirety i 
the alienee, in whose favour the transfer was made. He becair 
a sort of under-tenant of the first tenant or grantee of the Crow 
in whom a seignory or lordship remained to enable him to ful 
the services which were imposed as the consideration for, ai 
Manors. as inseparable from, the royal bounty. The sub-holdings tli 
created became the manors of the lords by whom they W( 
granted, and a variety of minor tenures, too complicated ) 
discussion here, thus came into existence. It will be sufficifl 
to say that the tenants of these manors, as of those older oil 
which had a different origin, consisted mainly of two grj 
classes. First, the freeholders of the manor, who occupied wlj 
the Saxons called the bokland, and held exactly the same relat f 
to the lord that the lord bore to the Sovereign, enjoying a 
finite and secure tenure in return for ascertained servM 
Secondly the copyholders, or occupiers of the folhland of 
manor, originally nothing more than the serfs of, the lord, \\ 
were permitted to hold certain portions of the demesne 
matter of favour, and whose rights grew in the course of centuj 
into a custom adopted and enforced by the common law of 
country. It was not until the reign of Edward I. that this 
cess of sub-in feudation was put an end to by a statute cajJ 
from certain words with which it sets out, the Statute of (j 
em])torcs. From that time the alienee of any portion of 
became the immediate tenant of the Sovereign, as if he had 11 
named in the original grant. The services which belongef 
such holdings were originally of almost endless variety, ! 
burdensome in the extreme and some .almost nominal in 
nature; but from this period the tenure ceased, at any rate, 
