cauſe it hath ſome corporal ſervice incident to it, as at the leaſt fealty, or the feodal oath of fidelity[1]. For, if a tenant holds his land by fealty, and ten ſhillings rent; or by the ſervice of ploughing the lord's land, and five ſhillings rent; theſe pecuniary rents, being connected with perſonal ſervices, are therefore called rent-ſervice. And for theſe, in caſe they be behind, or arrere, at the day appointed, the lord may diſtrein of common right, without reſerving any ſpecial power of diſtreſs; provided he hath in himſelf the reverſion, or future eſtate of the lands and tenements, after the leaſe or particular eſtate of the leſſee or grantee is expired[2]. A rent-charge, is where the owner of the rent hath no future intereſt, or reverſion expectant in the land; as where a man by deed maketh over to others his whole eſtate in fee ſimple, with a certain rent payable thereout, and adds to the deed a covenant or clauſe of diſtreſs, that if the rent be arrere, or behind, it ſhall be lawful to diſtrein for the ſame. In this caſe the land is liable to the diſtreſs, not of common right, but by virtue of the clauſe in the deed: and therefore it is called a rent-charge, becauſe in this manner the land is charged with a diſtreſs for the payment of it[3]. Rent-ſeck, reditus ſiccus, or barren rent, is in effect nothing more than a rent reſerved by deed, but without any clauſe of diſtreſs.
There are alſo other ſpecies of rents, which are reducible to theſe three. Rents of aſſiſe are the certain eſtabliſhed rents of the freeholders and antient copyholders of a manor[4], which cannot be departed from or varied. Thoſe of the freeholders are frequently called chief rents, reditus capitales, and both ſorts are indifferently denominated quit rents, quieti reditus; becauſe thereby the tenant goes quit and free of all other ſervices. When theſe payments were reſerved in ſilver or white money, they were antiently called white-rents, or blanch-farms, reditus albi[5]; in contradiſtinction to rents reſerved in work, grain, &c. which were
