28 TESSIER v. WYSE-—3 BLAND.

According to the common law, as between individuals, lands
were in no way liable to be taken in execution and sold for the
payment of debts. Bac. Abr. Tit. Execution, A. This total exemp-
tion of real estate from any such liability, it is said, was a neces-
sary consequence of the principles of the feudal system, which sys-
tem, softened and divested of most of its odious and pernicious
principles, having been incorporated into our Code, Chart. Maryl.
Art. 5, 18; Kilty Rep. 146; 1786, ch. 45, s. 1, Calvert's Lessee v.
Eden, 2 H. & McH. 279, 366, lands were, in like manner, exempted
here as in England from being taken in execution and sold for the
payment of debts. Kilty Rep. 144. According to the feudal
39 system * a feudatory was not permitted to alien the land so
held by him, but was bound as tenant to render certain services to
the king for the benefit of the public: and therefore it was held to
be contrary to the nature of the tenant's holding, and prejudicial
to the government, as interfering with the public revenue, to suf-
fer the land to be taken in execution and sold for the payment of
his debts; and also, because, looking to the inalienable nature of
his real estate, it could not be presumed, that he had been trusted
by his creditors any further than with a view to his personal estate.
These reasons, it is obvious, ceased when the principles of the
feudal system were so far relaxed as to allow to the fee simple
owner of land an absolute and unqualified right of alienation at his
pleasure; nevertheless, the exemption was continued in full force.
3 Blac. Com. 418, 420. But apart from these reasons for exempt-
ing land from being taken in execution, derived from the feudal
system, it is said, that a creditor was not, by the common law, per-
mitted to take away, by execution, the possession of his debtor's
lands; because it would hinder him from following his husbandry
and tillage which are so beneficial to the commonwealth. 2 Inst.
394. This being a reason for the exemption derived from the
nature of things, applies as forcibly now and here as at any former
time or other place. And although it may be admitted to be by
no means a sufficient cause for a total exemption of lands from be-
ing taken in execution; yet it is certainly reasonable, that lands
should not be so levied upon and sold as materially to interrupt
their cultivation, or endanger the loss of a then growing crop.
Rawlings v. Carroll, 1 Bland, 76, note; Dorsey v. Campbell, 1 Bland,
365; Swan v. Swan, 3 Exch. Rep. 443,

In England, the common law was, in this respect, so far altered
as to allow the lands of a debtor to be taken under an elegit or
otherwise, and delivered to the creditor at an extended, or esti-
mated annual value, until the whole debt was paid. Those English
statutes were introduced and practised under in Maryland; but
none of them authorized the selling of lands so taken in execution
in like manner as personal property. 11 Ed. 1; 13 Ed. 1, c. 18; 13
Ed. 3, stat. 3; 27 Ed. 3, c. 8 and 9; 36 Ed. 3, c. 7; 23 Hen. 8, c. 6;