216 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
- Why is this so ? For this it is necessary to know how an equitable right came to be recognized at the very start by the Court of Chancery. The historical setting may be presented briefly as follows :—
(i) It was a common practice in England before the Norman conquest for one person to do something ad opus —on behalf of another. For instance the Sheriff seized lands and held them ad opus domini Regis or where a knight went about to go to the crusades, conveyed his property to a friend to hold it on behalf of his wife and children. The word opus became gradually transformed into use and the land transferred came to be spoken of as land put in use.
(ii) Now if in certain circumstances some persons could deal with land on behalf of or to the use of another, the question that inevitably occured to men, why one person should not in a general way be allowed to hold land to the use of another. This as a matter of fact was exactly what was done in course of time. The tenant A would transfer his land by a Common Law conveyance to B, who undertook to hold it on behalf of, or adopting the correct expression, to the use of A.
In such cases B was called the feoffee to use, that is, the person to whom the feoffment had on certain conditions been made, while A went by the name of the Astin que use. which being interpreted, meant the person on whose behalf the land was held.
(iii) Reasons why this practice grew, are many. There were altogether six reasons why people liked to follow this practice of putting land in use. Of these two are of importance :—
(1) It enabled a party to escape the fuedual burdens to which was liable at Common Law. At Common Law the following burdens were placed upon the tenant—
(i) Relief— paid by a new tenant upon the death of an old tenant,
(ii) Aids—payable in three cases—
(a) to ransom the Lord when imprisoned;
(b) when the Lord desired to make his Lord a knight;
(c) when the Lord was obliged to supply his eldest daughter with a dowry.
(iii) Escheat—The commission by a tenant of a crime serious enough to amount to felony caused the land to escheat.
(iv) Wardship. —If an existing tenant died leaving as his heir a male under 21 or a female under 14, the Lord was entitled to the wardship of the heir and as a consequence was free to make any use he liked of the lands during the minority without any liability to render accounts.