ſo much in nature as in name: for although ſome be called copyholders, ſome cuſtomary, ſome tenants by the virge, ſome baſe tenants, ſome bond tenants, and ſome by one name and ſome by another, yet do they all agree in ſubſtance and kind of tenure: all the aid lands are holden in one general kind, that is, by cuſtom and continuance of time; and the diverſity of their names doth not alter the nature of their tenure."
Almost every copyhold tenant being therefore thus tenant at the will of the lord according to the cuſtom of the manor; which cuſtoms differ as much as the humour and temper of the reſpective antient lords, (from whence we may account for their great variety) ſuch tenant, I ſay, may have, ſo far as the cuſtom warrants, any other of the eſtates or quantities of intereſt, which we have hitherto conſidered, or may hereafter conſider, to hold united with this cuſtomary eſtate at will. A copyholder may, in many manors, be tenant in fee-ſimple, in fee-tail, for life, by the curteſy, in dower, for years, at ſufferance, or on condition; ſubject however to be deprived of theſe eſtates upon the concurrence of thoſe circumſtances which the will of the lord, promulged by immemorial cuſtom, has declared to be a forfeiture or abſolute determination of thoſe intereſts; as in ſome manors the want of iſſue male, in others the cutting down timber, the non-payment of a fine, and the like. Yet none of theſe intereſts amount to freehold; for the freehold of the whole manor abides always in the lord only[1], who hath granted out the uſe and occupation, but not the corporal ſeiſin or true poſſeſſion, of certain parts and parcels thereof, to theſe his cuſtomary tenants at will.
The reaſon of originally granting out this complicated kind of intereſt, ſo that the ſame man ſhall, with regard to the ſame land, be at one and the ſame time tenant in fee-ſimple and alſo tenant at the lord's will, ſeems to have ariſen from the nature of villenage tenure; in which a grant of any eſtate of freehold, or
- ↑ Litt. §. 81. 2 Inſt. 325.
