Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol II).djvu/74

the tenure in chivalry, per ſervitium militare, or by knight-ſervice. Secondly, where the ſervice was not only free, but alſo certain, as by fealty only, by rent and fealty, &c, that tenure was called liberum ſocagium, or free ſocage. Theſe were the only free holdings or tenements; the others were villenous or ſervile: as, thirdly, where the ſervice was baſe in it's nature, and uncertain as to time and quantity, the tenure was purum villenagium, abſolute or pure villenage. Laſtly, where the ſervice was baſe in it's nature, but reduced to a certainty, this was ſtill villenage, but diſtinguiſhed from the other by the name of privileged villenage, villenagium privilegiatum; or it might be ſtill called ſocage (from the certainty of it's ſervices) but degraded by their baſeneſs into the inferior title of villanum ſocagium, villein-ſocage.

1. The firſt, moſt univerſal, and eſteemed the moſt honourable ſpecies of tenure, was that by knight-ſervice, called in Latin ſervitium militare, and in law French chivalry, or ſervice de chivaler, anſwering to the fief d'haubert of the Normans^[1], which name is expreſſly given it by the mirrour^[2]. This differed in very few points, as we ſhall preſently ſee, from a pure and proper feud, being entirely military, and the genuine effect of the feodal eſtabliſhment in England. To make a tenure by knight-ſervice, a determinate quantity of land was neceſſary, which was called a knight's fee, feodum militare; the value of which, not only in the reign of Edward II^[3], but alſo of Henry II^[4], and therefore probably at it's original in the reign of the conqueror, was ſtated at 20𝑙. per annum; and a certain number of theſe knight's fees were requiſite to make up a barony. And he who held this proportion of land (or a whole fee) by knight-ſervice, was bound to attend his lord to the wars for forty days in every year, if called upon: which attendance was his reditus or return, his rent or ſervice, for the land he claimed to hold. If he held only half a knight's fee, he was only bound to attend twenty days, and ſo in proportion^[5]. And there is reaſon to apprehend, that this ſer-

1. Spelm. Gloſſ. 219.
2. c. 2. §. 27.
3. Stat. de milit. 1 Edw. II. Co. Litt. 69.
4. Glanvil. l. 9. c. 4.
5. Litt. §. 95.