“ After discussing in their logical order other freehold interests in land, he passes to interests in land called by later writers interests less than freehold, namely, tenancies for terms of years and tenancies at will. With the exception of tenancy from year to year, now so familiar to us, but which was a judicial creation of a date later than the time of Littleton, the first book is a complete statement of the principles of the common law, as they for the most part still exist, governing and regulating interests in lands. ”

“ Next in order comes tenancy in fee tail, the various classes of which are sketched by Littleton with brevity and accuracy, but he is silent as to the important practice, which first received judicial recognition shortly before his death, of “suffering a recovery,” whereby through a series of judicial fictions a tenant in tail was enabled to convert his estate tail into a fee simple, thus acquiring full power of alienation. ”

“ Next follows an elaborate discussion upon what are called estates upon condition—a class of interests which occupied a large space in the early common law, giving rise on one side to estates tail, on another to mortgages. In Littleton’s time a mortgage, which he carefully describes, was merely a conveyance of land by the tenant to the mortgagee, with a condition that, if the tenant paid to the mortgagee a certain sum on a certain day, he might re-enter and have the land again. ”

“ This leads him to discuss the various modes in which several persons may simultaneously have rights over the same land, as parceners:—daughters who are co-heiresses, or sons in gavelkind; joint tenants and tenants in common. ”