This is the primary ſenſe and acceptation of the word fee. But (as ſir Martin Wright very juſtly obſerves[1]) the doctrine, "that all lands are holden," having been for ſo many ages a fixed and undeniable axiom, our Engliſh lawyers do very rarely (of late years eſpecially) uſe the word fee in this it's primary original ſenſe, in contradiſtinction to allodium or abſolute property, with which they have no concern; but generally uſe it to expreſs the continuance or quantity of eſtate. A fee therefore, in general, ſignifies an eſtate of inheritance; being the higheſt and moſt extenſive intereſt that a man can have in a feud: and, when the term is uſed ſimply, without any other adjunct, or has the adjunct of ſimple annexed to it, (as, a fee, or, a fee-ſimple) it is uſed in contradiſtinction to a fee conditional at the common law, or a fee-tail by the ſtatute; importing an abſolute inheritance, clear of any condition, limitation, or reſtrictions to particular heirs, but deſcendible to the heirs general, whether male or female, lineal or collateral. And in no other ſenſe than this is the king ſaid to be ſeiſed in fee, he being the feudatory of no man[2].
Taking therefore fee for the future, unleſs where otherwiſe explained, in this it's ſecondary ſenſe, as a ſtate of inheritance, it is applicable to, and may be had in, any kind of hereditaments either corporeal or incorporeal[3]. But there is this diſtinction between the two ſpecies of hereditaments; that, of a corporeal inheritance a man ſhall be ſaid to be ſeiſed in his demeſne, as of fee; of an incorporeal one he ſhall only be ſaid to be ſeiſed as of fee, and not in his demeſne[4]. For, as incorporeal hereditaments are in their nature collateral to, and iſſue out of, lands and houſes[5], their owner hath no property, dominicum, or demeſne, in the thing itſelf, but hath only ſomething derived out of it; reſembling the ſervitutes, or ſervices, of the civil law[6]. The dominicum or pro-
