though the feodal reſtraint on alienations by deed vaniſhed very early, yet this on wills continued for ſome centuries after; from an apprehenſion of infirmity and impoſition on the teſtator in extremis, which made ſuch deviſes ſuſpicious[1]. Beſides, in deviſes there was wanting that general notoriety, and public deſignation of the ſucceſſor, which in deſcents is apparent to the neighbourhood, and which the ſimplicity of the common law always required in every transfer and new acquiſition of property.
But when eccleſiaſtical ingenuity had invented the doctrine of uſes, as a thing diſtinct from the land, uſes began to be deviſed very frequently[2], and the deviſee of the uſe could in chancery compel it's execution. For it is obſerved by Gilbert[3], that, as the popiſh clergy then generally fate in the court of chancery, they conſidered that men are moſt liberal when they can enjoy their poſſeſſions no longer; and therefore at their death would chooſe to diſpoſe of them to thoſe, who, according to the ſuperſtition of the times, could intercede for their happineſs in another world. But, when the ſtatute of uſes[4] had annexed the poſſeſſion to the uſe, theſe uſes, being now the very land itſelf, became no longer deviſable: which might have occaſioned a great revolution in the law of deviſes, had not the ſtatute of wills been made about five years after, viz. 32 Hen. VIII. c. 1. explained by 34 Hen. VIII. c. 5. which enacted, that all perſons being ſeiſed in fee-ſimple (except feme-coverts, infants, idiots, and perſons of nonſane memory) might by will and teſtament in writing deviſe to any other perſon, but not to bodies corporate, two thirds of their lands, tenements, and hereditaments, held in chivalry, and the whole of thoſe held in ſocage: which now, through the alteration of tenures by the ſtatute of Charles the ſecond, amounts to the whole of their landed property, except their copyhold tenements.
Corporations were excepted in theſe ſtatutes, to prevent the extention of gifts in mortmain; but now, by conſtruc-
