But the heir's persona was not even the sum of all the ancestor's
rights and duties in connection with real estate. It has been
said already that every fee descends specifically, and not as
incident to a larger universitas. This appears not so much from
the fact that the rules of descent governing different parcels
might be different, /3/ so that the same person would not be heir
to both, as from the very nature of feudal property. Under the
feudal system in its vigor, the holding of land was only one
[351] incident of a complex personal relation. The land was
forfeited for a failure to render the services for which it was
granted; the service could be renounced for a breach of
correlative duties on the part of the lord. /1/ It rather seems
that, in the beginning of the feudal period under Charlemagne, a
man could only hold land of one lord. /2/ Even when it had become
common to hold of more than one, the strict personal relation was
only modified so far as to save the tenant from having to perform
inconsistent services. Glanvill and Bracton /3/ a tell us that a
tenant holding of several lords was to do homage for each fee,
but to reserve his allegiance for the lord of whom he held his
chief estate; but that, if the different lords should make war
upon each other, and the chief lord should command the tenant to
obey him in person, the tenant ought to obey, saving the service
due to the other lord for the fee held of him.
We see, then, that the tenant had a distinct persona or status in
respect of each of the fees which he held. The rights and duties
incident to one of them had no relation to the rights and duties
incident to another. A succession to one had no connection with
the succession to another. Each succession was the assumption of
a distinct personal relation, in which the successor was to be
determined by the terms of the relation in question.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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