Land Tenure and Conveyances in Missouri

It is impossible to apply the artificial rules of the modern law of real property without a clear understanding of the feudal system of land tenure in which they originated. The disappearance of the essentials of feudal society-the personal relation between lord and tenant and the duties owed by the tenant to the lord-has not taken away the feudal basis of the law of real property; nor has it made the common law rules, apart from statute, less applicable. But there is such a close connection between land ownership and other social institutions' that, however fixed the legal theory, the former is bound to undergo many changes as the latter are developed. To know what these changes have been and are to be, it is imperative that the fundamental conceptions of land ownership be understood.

No study of future interests in land can neglect the basic notions of tenure and seisin, both of which are still of influence in the development of the law.