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COPYHOLD
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COPYHOLD , in See also:English See also:law, an See also:ancient See also:form of See also:land See also:tenure, legally defined as a " holding at the will of the See also:lord according to the See also:custom of the See also:manor." Though nowadays of diminishing See also:practical importance, its incidents are historically interesting. Its origin is to be found in the occupation by See also:villani, or non-freemen, of portions of land belonging to the manor of a feudal lord. In the See also:time of the Domesday survey the manor was in See also:part granted to See also:free tenants, in part reserved by the lord himself for his own uses. The See also:estate of the free tenants is the See also:freehold estate of English law; as tenants of the same manor they assembled together in manorial See also:court or court See also:baron, of which they were the See also:judges. The portion of the manor reserved for the lord (the See also:demesne, or domain) was cultivated by labourers who were See also:bound to the land (adscripti glebae). They could not leave the manor, and their service was obligatory. These villani, however, were allowed by the lord to cultivate portions of land for their own use. It was a See also:mere occupation at the See also:pleasure of the lord, but in course of time it See also:grew into an occupation by right, recognized first of all by custom and afterwards by law. This See also:kind of tenure is called by the lawyers villenagium, and it probably marks a See also:great advance in the See also:general recognition of the right when the name is applied to lands held on the same conditions not by villeins but by free men. The tenants in See also:villenage were not, like the freeholders, members of the court baron, but they appear to have attended in a humbler capacity, and to have solicited the See also:succession to the land occupied by a deceased See also:father, or the See also:admission of a new See also:tenant who had See also:purchased the See also:good-will, as it might be called, of the holding, paying for such favours certain customary fines or dues. In relation to the tenants in villenage, the court baron was called the customary court. The records of the court constituted the See also:title of the villein tenant, held by copy of the court See also:roll (whence the See also:term "copyhold "); and the customs of the manor therein recorded formed the real See also:property law applicable to his See also:case. Copyhold had See also:long been established in practice before it was
formally recognized by the law. At first it was in fact, as it is now in the fictitious theory of the law, a tenancy at will, for which none of the legal remedies of a freeholder were available. In the reign of See also:Edward IV., however, it was held that a tenant in villenage had an See also:action of trespass against the lord. In this way a See also:species of tenant-right, depending on and strongly supported by popular See also:opinion, was changed into a legal right. But it retained many incidents characteristic of its See also:historical origin. The See also:life of copyhold assurance, it is said, is custom. Copyhold is necessarily See also:parcel of a manor, and the freehold is said to be in the lord of the manor. The court roll of the manor is the See also:evidence of title and the See also:record of the See also:special See also:laws as to fines, quit rents, heriots, &c., prevailing in the manor. When copyhold land is conveyed from one See also:person to another, it is surrendered by the owner to the lord, who by his See also:payment of the customary See also:fine makes a new See also: Hence also the popular saying that the " See also:oak grows not except on free land." The copyholder must not commit See also:waste either by cutting down timber, &c., or by neglecting to repair buildings. In such respects the law treats him as a mere lessee,—the real owner being supposed to be the lord. On the other See also:hand, the lord may not enter the land to cut his own timber or open his mines. The limitations of estates usual in respect of other lands, as found in copyhold, become subject of course to the operations of its See also:peculiar conditions as to the relation of lord and tenant. An estate for life, or pour autre See also:vie (i.e. for another's life), an estate See also:entail, cr in fee-simple, may be carved out of copyhold. A species of tenure resembling copyhold is what is known as customary freehold. The land is held by copy of court-roll, but not by will of the lord. The question has been raised whether the freehold of such lands is in the lord of the manor or in the tenant, and the courts of law have decided in favour of the former. In some instances copyhold for lives alone is recognized, and in such cases the lord of the manor may ultimately, when all the lives have dropped, get back the land into his own hands. The feudal obligations attaching to copyhold tenure have been found to cause much inconvenience to the tenants, while they are of no great value to the lord. One of the most vexatious of these is the See also:heriot, under which name the lord is entitled to seize the tenant's best beast or other See also:chattel in the event of the tenant's See also:death. The custom See also:dates from the time when all the copyholder's property, including the copyholder himself, belonged to the lord, and is supposed to have been fixed by way of See also:analogy to the custom which gave a military tenant's habiliments to his lord in See also:order to equip his successor. Instances have occurred of articles of great value being seized as heriots for the copyhold tenements of their owners. A See also:race See also:horse See also:worth £2000 or £3000 was thus seized. The fine payable on the admission of a new tenant, whether by See also:alienation or succession, is to a certain extent arbitrary, but the courts long ago laid down the See also:rule that it must be reasonable, and anything beyond two years' improved value of the lands they disallowed. The inconvenience caused by these feudal incidents of the tenure led to a See also:series of statutes, having for their See also:object the See also:conversion of copyhold into, freehold. The first Copyhold See also:Act, that of 1841, was consolidated by the Copyhold Act 1894. Owing to the incidents attaching to land " See also:holden by copy of court roll according to the custom of the manor " in the shape of fines and heriots, the inability to grant a See also:lease for a term exceeding a See also:year, and to the peculiar rules as to descent, waste, See also:dower, See also:curtesy, alienation, and other matters, varying often from manor to manor and widely differing from the See also:uniform law applicable tc land in general, enfranchisement, or the conversion of land held by copyhold tenure into freehold, is often desired. This could and may still be effected at See also:common law, but only by agreement on the part of both the lord and the tenant. Moreover, it was subject to other disadvantages. The cost See also:fell on the tenant, and the land when enfranchised was subject to the encumbrances attaching to the manor, and so an investigation into the lord's title was necessary. In 1841 an act was passed to provide a statutory method of enfranchisement, removing some of the barriers existing at common law; but the machinery created was only available where both lord and tenant were in agreement. The Copyhold Act 1852 went further, and for the first time introduced the principle of compulsory enfranchisement on the part of either party. By the Copyhold Act 1894, which now governs statutory enfranchisement, the former Copyhold Acts 1841-1887, were repealed, and the law was consolidated and improved. Enfranchisement is now effected under this act, though in certain cases it is also to be obtained under special acts, such as the Land Clauses Consolidation Act 1848; and the old common law method with all its disadvantages is still open. The Copyhold Act 1894 deals both with compulsory and with voluntary enfranchisement. In either case the See also:sanction of the See also:Board of See also:Agriculture must be obtained; and See also:powers are bestowed on it to decide questions arising on enfranchisement, with an See also:appeal to the High Court. The actual enfranchisement, where it is compelled by one of the parties, is effected by an See also:award made by the board; in the case of a voluntary enfranchisement it is completed by See also:deed. Under the act it is open to both lordand tenant to compel enfranchisement, though the expenses are to be See also:borne by the party requiring it. The See also:compensation to the lord, in the absence of an agreement, is ascertained under the direction of the board on a valuation made by a valuer or valuers appointed by the lord and tenant; and may be paid either in a See also:gross sum or by way of an See also:annual See also:rent See also:charge issuing out of the land enfranchised, and See also:equivalent to See also:interest at the See also:rate of 4% on the amount fixed upon as compensation. This rent charge is redeemable on six months' See also:notice at twenty-five times its annual amount. The tenant, even if he is the compelling party, may elect either method; but the lord has not the same See also:option, and where the enfranchisement is at his instance, unless there is either an agreement to the contrary or a notice on the part of the tenant to exercise his option, the compensation is a rent charge. See also:Power is conferred on the lord to See also:purchase the tenant's interest where a See also:change in the See also:condition of the land by enfranchisement would See also:prejudice his See also:mansion See also:house, See also:park or gardens; while on the other hand, in the interest of the public or the other tenants, the board is authorized to continue conditions of user for their benefit. So far the provisions See also:relating to compulsory enfranchisement have been dealt with; but even in the case of a voluntary agreement the lord and tenant are only entitled to accept enfranchisement with the consent of the Board of Agriculture. The See also:consideration in addition to a gross sum or a rent charge may consist of a conveyance of land, or of a right to mines or minerals, or of a right to waste in land$ belonging to the manor, or partly in one way and partly in another. The effect of enfranchisement, whether it be voluntary or compulsory, is that the land becomes of freehold tenure subject to the same laws relating to descent, dower and curtesy as are applicable to freeholds, and so freed from See also:Borough English, See also:Gavelkind (See also:save in See also:Kent), and other customary modes of descent, and from any custom relating to dower or free-See also:bench or tenancy by curtesy. Nevertheless, the lord is entitled to See also:escheat in the event of failure of heirs, just as if the land had not been enfranchised. The land is held under the same title as that under which it was held at the date at which the enfranchisement takes effect; but it is not subject to any estate right, charge, or interest affecting the manor. Every See also:mortgage of copyhold estate in the land enfranchised becomes a mortgage of the freehold, though subject to the priority of the rent charge paid in compensation under the act. All rights and interests of any person in the land and all leases remain binding in the same manner. On the other hand the tenant's rights of common still continue attached to the freehold; and, without See also:express consent in See also:writing of the lord or tenant respectively, the right of either in mines or minerals shall not be affected by the change. No creation of new copyholds by granting land out of the waste is permissible, save with the consent of the Board of Agriculture; and the act enacts that a valid admittance of a new copy-holder may be made without holding a court. Under the earlier acts, machinery to free the land from the See also:burden of the old rents, fines and heriots was set up, commuting them into a rent charge or a fine. See also:Commutation, however, is never compulsory, and differs from enfranchisement in that, whereas by enfranchisement the land in question is converted into freehold, by commutation it still continued parcel of the manor, though subject to a rent charge or a fine, as might have been agreed. The See also:ordinary laws of descent, dower, and curtesy were, however, substituted for the customs in relation to these matters incidental to the land in question before commutation, and the timber became the tenant's. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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