ſiders as a chattel intereſt. For ſince, as the commentator on the couſtumier obſerves, there are two requiſites to make a fief or heritage, duration as to time, and immobility with regard to place; whatever wants either of theſe qualities is not, according to the Normans, an heritage or fief[1]; or, according to us, is not a real eſtate: the conſequence of which in both laws is, that it muſt be a perſonal eſtate, or chattel.
Chattels therefore are diſtributed by the law into two kinds; chattels real, and chattels perſonal.
1. Chattels real, ſaith ſir Edward Coke[2], are ſuch as concern, or ſavour of, the realty; as terms for years of land, wardſhips in chivalry (while the military tenures ſubſiſted) the next preſentation to a church, eſtates by ſtatute-merchant, ſtatute-ſtaple, elegit, or the like; of all which we have already ſpoken. And theſe are called real chattels, as being intereſts iſſuing out of, or annexed to real eſtates: of which they have one quality, viz. immobility, which denominates them real; but want the other, viz. a ſufficient, legal, indeterminate duration: and this want it is, that conſtitutes them chattels. The utmoſt period for which they can laſt is fixed and determinate, either for ſuch a ſpace of time certain, or till ſuch a particular ſum of money be raiſed out of ſuch a particular income; ſo that they are not equal in the eye of the law to the loweſt eſtate of freehold, a leaſe for another’s life: their tenants were conſidered, upon feodal principles, as merely bailiffs or farmers; and the tenant of the freehold might at any time have deſtroyed their intereſt, till the reign of Henry VIII.[3] A freehold, which alone is a real eſtate, and ſeems (as has been ſaid) to anſwer to the fief in Normandy, is conveyed by corporal inveſtiture and livery of ſeiſin; which gives the tenant ſo ſtrong a hold of the land, that it never after can
- ↑ Cateux ſont meubles et immeubles: ſicomme vrais meubles ſont qui tranſporter ſe peuvent; et enſuivir le corps; immeubles ſont choſes qui ne peuvent emſuivir le corps, nieſtre tranſportees, et tout ce qui n’eſt point en heritage. LL. Will. Nothi. c. 4. apud Dufreſne. II. 409.
- ↑ 1 Inſt. 118.
- ↑ See pag. 141, 142.
