TENEMENT

In Law. These words are derived from the principles of the feudal system, according to which (as it prevailed in England) no land was without a lord; and every one who enjoyed land held it either of a mesne tenant, or of the crown. The party holding the land is called tenant, the thing holden tenement, the mode of holding tenure. Thus tenants are said to be in fee-simple, in tail, for life, for years, . Tenement, in the largest sense of the word, is everything; which may be holden; viz. all corporeal hereditaments, and incorporeal hereditaments of a permanent nature i uing out of the same. Thus lands, houses, rights of common, &:c., franchises, offices, are all tenements in the larger sense. In the more narrow acceptation in which \22'i I TENURE. the word is popularly applied, it describes a house with the homestall or immediate appurtenances. [s. 1235]