Short Studies in the Early Common Law. them as payments on the debt, it was trouble without recompense. Probably the uncer tainty that prevailed on this point 1 from an early period shows that mortgages were rarely employed then for purposes of investment. But the rent-charge had none of these dis advantages. If sufficient security were taken in the first place, it must remain so, for there were no accumulations of interest, costs, etc., to look out for, as in modern mortgages. Unless the rent were perpetual, the security must constantly grow better, as its present value diminished by successive payments. In any case the arrearages could not be large without gross and long-continued neglect of the party entitled; and the sum due at any annual or other instalment was so small in proportion to the value of the property charged, that the rent-payer had every in ducement to pay promptly, and none what ever to throw the land upon the hands of a reluctant creditor, as is often the case of a modern mortgagee, who must take that or nothing when the mortgagor is personally insolvent. The risk, in that case, of depre ciation in the value of the security, for exam ple, by destruction of improvements, neglect and wasting of the land, is common to both transactions. Against these advantages, almost the only objections that could be made to-day to the rent as an investment are that the lender cannot call for his entire loan at any time, — though usually the borrower had the right to redeem the rent by a gross sum on proper notice of his intention, — and that the prin cipal sum is gradually diminished by the payments instead of remaining intact until repayment in full. These doubtless account for the disuse of such investments to-day, when the lender may have a chance some time of investing his money to better profit, or if he lends merely to live on his interest, feels bound in prudence to keep his capital sum intact. But this is to compare the rents with forms of investment that then were practically unknown, or very rare. As comi Glanvil, lib. x. c. 8, § 6.
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pared with investments in land which practically furnished the only alternative, the rent had almost every advantage except the profit which might be made by improved values. We see now why rents constituted an ear lier form of property (in the broadest sense of that word, including investments and se curities) than loans of money on personal credit, or even mortgages in their modern form as securities for the payment of a gross sum. These have grown out of the develop ment of credit, which has been the conse quence of the increased abundance and use of money in modern times; 1 and at once the consequence and cause of a vast devel opment of the law of contracts or obligations in personam. The rent was not a contract originally, but a property right, in the narrow sense of rights to external things. It was a method of dividing the issues and profits of land between different owners, so that each might have them in the form that suited him best, — the rent-owner taking a fixed sum irre spective of any increase or diminution in those profits; the tenant having the benefit of his own exertions upon the land when these made the profits larger. The possession of a seignory or honor was not necessarily connected with that of a de mesne, or of land in any form, as that of a manor was. A great lord might have his entire income from freehold tenants who were themselves seized of all the land from which they owed him services; indeed, he was more likely to be in that position than the owner of a single knights' fee or manor who had a strong interest in holding a part of it in demesne. Even if the great lord had a castle or a number of them, he did not need to cultivate any part of them by serfs, — he who had knights, perhaps barons, for his under tenants. Hence there was nothing strange in the conception of rents distinct from the ownership of lands; it would have been strange if men of wealth who loved ease had not preferred this form of investment. 1 Eichhorn, Kinleitung, § 105. quoted by Albrecht, note 43'-
