[76]. Ibid., II. x. s. 162.
[77]. Pollock and Maitland, I. 218.
[78]. Littleton and Coke seem almost to countenance two additional tenures, viz., tenure by scutage or escuage, and tenure by Castle-guard. Pollock and Maitland consider both as alternative names for knight’s service. (See I. 251 and I. 257.) The latter is discussed infra under c. 29 of Magna Carta.
[79]. Jenks, Modern Land Law, p. 14.
[80]. It has been well described by Pollock and Maitland (I. 294) as “the great residuary tenure.” In Scotland the “residuary tenure” is not socage but “feu” (resembling the English fee-farm). Holdings in feu are still familiar to Scots lawyers. They are originated by a formal charter, followed by registration (the modern equivalent of infeftment or feudal investiture), thus preserving an unbroken connection with the feudal conveyancing of the Middle Ages.
[81]. Norman Conquest, V. 377; Hist. of William Rufus, 335–7.
[82]. Feudal England, p. 228 et seq.
[83]. All three forms of feudal obligation—service, incidents, and aids—have long been obsolete in England. The statute 12 Charles II. c. 24 swept away the feudal incidents along with the feudal system; centuries before, scutages in lieu of military service had become obsolete in the transition from the system of feudal finance to that of national finance, effected by the Crown in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Feudal aids were also long obsolete, although James I., in desperate straits for money, had attempted to revive two of them. In France the feudal system, with all its burdensome obligations, remained in full vigour until it was abolished in one night by the famous decree of the National Assembly of 4th August, 1790. In Scotland, the feudal system of land tenure still exists, and certain of its incidents (e.g. reliefs and compositions or fines for alienation) are exacted at the present day.
[84]. Blackstone, Commentaries, II. 63, however arranges these in a different order, and mentions as a seventh incident “aids,” which are here reserved for separate treatment.
[85]. See Pollock and Maitland, I. 296.