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Indiana University Studies 
their right was only a right to hold it. This right might be for 
a longer or shorter time. The period during which land was 
held was called an estate. This period might be at will, for 
years, for life, or for the life of a person and his heirs, etc. 
Under military and socage tenures the tenants generally had 
an estate of indefinite duration, which meant that they could 
enjoy the land for their lives and at their death it would go 
to their heirs, or to the heir of their bodies, on the principle 
of primogeniture as soon as that principle was established 
(which was before the reign of Henry II), and among the 
children equally prior to that time. At first the land could 
not be alienated, but before the time of Edward I it became 
the rule, not only that a tenant could alienate his land by 
feoffment or grant when it was granted to him and his heirs ; 
but also when it was granted to him and the heirs of his body, 
because it was held in the latter case that having heirs of 
his body was merely a condition and that as soon as he had 
heirs of his body he had a fee simple estate which he could 
transfer as much as in the first case. Before the right of 
alienation grew up the heirs took from their ancestor’s gran- 
tor. Thereafter their ancestor was complete owner (as above 
explained) and they took from him by descent. Villein tenants 
during the period now under consideration held land only at 
the will of their lord. Estates for years and future estates 
were probably recognized by the time of Henry III, but they 
came into more common use in the time of Edward I (Strict 
Period) after the Statute of Quia Emptores had abolished 
subinfeudation. Henry I, by his Charter of Liberties, enacted 
that testamentary disposition of personality should not be 
interfered with, and thereby continued the Anglo-Saxon law 
as to chattels. Wills of land also were probably permitted by 
the Anglo-Saxons, but under the feudal system no will of land 
was permitted from the time of William the Conqueror to the 
Statute of Wills (1540), and this applied to non-military as 
well as military tenures. Equity found a way to evade this 
rule to some extent before the rule was changed by the Statute 
of Wills. Dower in the time of the Anglo-Saxons depended 
upon express gift of the husband, and this continued to be 
true up to the time of Glanville (Henry II), but by the time 
of Henry II the widow had the right to a life estate in one- 
third of the estate of inheritance of her husband of which 
