Note 212 — Book VII.

An able writer accounts for this principle by informing us, that the whole feudal system was built on the distinct rights of superior and vassal, and the blending these two characters, without a necessity arising from the feudal relations themselves, in one person, appeared to be blending of contrary qualities together. (Dalrymple’s Essay on feuds, p. 177.) Mr. Reeves observes, “that in the times of Glanville and Bracton the reservation of services might be made either to the Feoffor, or to the Lord of whom the Feoffor held; they seem more commonly to have been made in the former manner: thus, every such new feoffment in fee, made a new tenure, and of course created a new manor: and so the Law continued till the statute quia Emptores 18. Ed. 1. required feoffments in fee to be made, with reservation of the Services to the chief Lord.” (1 Hist. Eng. Law. 106.) See also Hale’s Hist. Com. Law. 158.