if we conſider the produce of them, as the tenth ſheaf or tenth lamb, ſeem to be completely corporeal; yet they are indeed incorporeal hereditaments: for they, being merely a contingent right, collateral to or iſſuing out of lands, can never be the object of ſenſe: they are neither capable of being ſhewn to the eye, nor of being delivered into bodily poſſeſſion.
Incorporeal hereditaments are principally of ten ſorts; advowſons, tithes, commons, ways, offices, dignities, franchiſes, corodies or penſions, annuities, and rents.
I. Advowson is the right of preſentation to a church, or eccleſiaſtical benefice. Advowſon, advocatio, ſignifies in clientelam recipere, the taking into protection; and therefore is ſynonymous with patronage, patronatus: and he who has the right of advowſon is called the patron of the church. For, when lords of manors firſt built churches on their own demeſnes, and appointed the tithes of thoſe manors to be paid to the officiating miniſters, which before were given to the clergy in common (from whence, as was formerly mentioned[1], aroſe the diviſion of pariſhes) the lord, who thus built a church, and endowed it with glebe or land, had of common right a power annexed of nominating ſuch miniſter as he pleaſed (provided he were canonically qualified) to officiate in that church of which he was the founder, endower, maintainer, or, in one word, the patron[2].
This inſtance of an advowſon will completely illuſtrate the nature of an incorporeal hereditament. It is not itſelf the bodily poſſeſſion of the church and it's appendages; but it is a right to give ſome other man a title to ſuch bodily poſſeſſion. The advowſon is the object of neither the fight, nor the touch; and yet it perpetually exiſts in the mind's eye, and in contemplation of law. It cannot be delivered from man to man by any viſible bo-
