SEISIN, in Law, signifies possession. In this sense we say, premier seisin, for the first possession. Seisin is divided into that in deed or in fact, and that in law. A seisin in deed is where a possession is actually taken; but a seisin in law is where lands descend, and the party has not entered thereon; or it is where a person has a right to lands, and is by wrong disseised of them. A seisin in law is held to be sufficient to avow on, though to the bringing of an assize, actual seisin is required; and where seisin is alleged, the person pleading it must show of what estate he is seised.

Livery of Seisin, in Law, an essential ceremony in the conveyance of landed property, being no other than the pure feudal investiture, or delivery of corporal possession, of the land or tenement. This was held absolutely necessary to complete the donation, Nam feudam sine investitura nullo modo constitui potuit; and an estate was then only perfect when, as Fleta expresses it in our law, fit juris et seisinae conjunctio.

Investitures, in their original rise, were probably intended to demonstrate in conquered countries the actual possession of the lord; and that he did not grant a bare litigious right, which the soldier was ill qualified to prosecute, but a peaceable and firm possession. And, at a time when writing was seldom practised, a mere oral gift, at a distance from the spot that was given, was unlikely to be either long or accurately retained in the memory of bystanders, who were very little interested in the grant. Afterwards they were retained as a public and notorious act, that the country might take notice of and testify the transfer of the estate, and that such as claimed title by other means might know against whom to bring their actions.

In all well-governed nations, some notoriety of this kind has ever been held requisite, in order to acquire and ascertain the property of lands. In the Roman law, plenum [7:20:79] dominium was not said to subsist unless where a man had both the right and the corporal possession; which possession could not be acquired without both an actual intention to possess, and an actual seisin or entry into the premises, or part of them in the name of the whole. And even in ecclesiastical promotions, where the freehold passes to the person promoted, corporal possession is required at this day to vest the property completely in the new proprietor, who, according to the distinction of the canonist, acquires the jus ad rem, or inchoate and imperfect right, by nomination and institution, but not the jus in re, or the complete and full right, unless by corporal possession. Therefore in dignities possession is given by instalment, and in rectories and vicarages by induction, without which no temporal rights accrue to the minister, though every ecclesiastical power is vested in him by institution. So also by our law, even in descents of lands, which are cast on the heir by act of the law itself, the heir has not plenum dominium, or full and complete ownership, till he has made an actual corporal entry into the lands; for if he dies before entry made, his heir shall not be entitled to take the possession, but the heir of the person who was last actually seised. It is not therefore a mere right to enter, but the actual entry, that makes a man complete owner, so as to transmit the inheritance to his own heirs: Non jus, sed seisina, facit stipitem.

Yet the corporal tradition of lands being sometimes inconvenient, a symbolical delivery of possession was in many cases anciently allowed, by transferring something near at hand, in the presence of credible witnesses, which by agreement should serve to represent the very thing designed to be conveyed; and an occupancy of this sign or symbol was permitted as equivalent to an occupancy of the land itself. Among the Jews, we find the evidence of a purchase thus defined in the book of Ruth: “Now this was the manner in former time in Israel, concerning redeeming and concerning changing, for to confirm all things; a man plucked off his shoe, and gave it to his neighbour, and this was a testimony in Israel.” Among the ancient Goths and Swedes, contracts for the sale of lands were made in the presence of witnesses, who extended the cloak of the buyer, while the seller cast a clod of the land into it, in order to give possession; and a staff or wand was also delivered from the vender to the vendee, which passed through the hands of the witnesses. With our Saxon ancestors the delivery of a turf was a necessary solemnity in the conveyance of lands; and, to this day, the conveyance of our copyhold estates is usually made from the seller to the lord or his steward by delivery of a rod or verge, and then from the lord to the purchaser by redelivery of the same in the presence of a jury of tenants.

Conveyances in writing were the last and most refined improvement. The mere delivery of possession, either actual or symbolical, depending upon the ocular testimony and remembrance of the witnesses, was liable to be forgotten or misrepresented, and became frequently incapable of proof. Besides, the new occasions and necessities introduced by the advancement of commerce required means to be devised of charging and encumbering estates, and of making them liable to a multitude of conditions and minute designations, for the purposes of raising money, without an absolute sale of the land; and sometimes similar proceedings were found useful in order to make a decent and competent provision for the numerous branches of a family, and for other domestic views; none of which could be effected by a mere simple corporal transfer of the soil from one man to another, which was principally calculated for conveying an absolute and unlimited dominion. Written deeds were therefore introduced, in order to specify and perpetuate the peculiar purposes of the party who conveyed-Yet still for a very long series of years, they were never made use of, but in company with the more ancient and notorious method of transfer by delivery of corporal possession.