SEIGNIOR or SEIGNEUR. Among the feudists, this name signified lord of the fee. F. N. B. 23. The most extended signification of this word includes not only a lord or peer of parliament, but is applied¹ to the owner or proprietor² of a thing; hence, the owner of a hawk³, and the master of a fishing vessel⁴, is called a seigneur. 37 Edw. Ill. c. 19; Barr. on the Stat. 258.

SEIGNIORY, Eng. law. The rights of a lord as such, in lands. Swinb. 174.

SEISIN, estates. The possession of an estate of freebold. 8 N. H. Rep. 57; 3 Hamm. 220; 8 Litt. 134; 4 Mass. 408. Seisin was used in contradistinction to that precarious⁵ kind of possession by which tenants⁶ in villenage held their lands, which was considered to be the possession of their lords in, whom the freehold continued.

2. Seisin is either in fact or in law.

3. Where a freehold estate is conveyed to a person by feoffment, with livery of seisin, or by any of those conveyances⁸ which derive⁹ their effect from the statute¹⁰ of uses, he acquires a seisin in deed or in fact, and a freehold in deed: but where the freehold comes to a person by act of law, as by descent, he only acquires a seisin in law, that is, a right of possession, and his-estate is called a freehold In law.

4. The seisin in law, which the heir acquires on the death of his ancestor, May be defeated by the entry of a stranger, claiming a right to the land, which is called an abatement¹¹. (q. v.)

5. The actual seisin of an estate may be lost by the forcible entry of a stranger who thereby¹² ousts¹³ or dispossesses the owner this act is called a disseisin. (q. v.)

6. According to Lord Mansfield, the various alterations¹⁴ which have been made in the law for the last three centuries, "have left us but the name of feoffment, seisin, tenure¹⁵, and, freeholder, without any precise knowledge of the thing originally signified by these sounds."

7. In the United States, a conveyance⁷ by deed executed and acknowledged, and properly recorded according to law, and the descent cast upon the heir are, in general, considered as a seisin in deed without entry; and a grant by letters- patent from the commonwealth¹⁶ has the same effect. 4 Mass. R. 546; 7 Mass. R. 494; 15. Mass. R. 214 1 Munf. R. 17O. The recording¹⁷ of a deed is equivalent to livery of seisin. 4 Mass. 546.

8. In Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Ohio, seisin means merely, ownership, and the distinction between seisin in deed and in law is not known in practice. Walk. Intr. 324, 330; 1 Hill. Abr. 24 4 Day, R. 305; 4 Mass.; R. 489 14 Pick. R. 224. A patent by the commonwealth, in Kentucky, gives a, right entry, but not actual seisin. 3 Bibb, Rep. 57. Vide 1 Inst. 31; 19 Vin. Ab. 306; Dane's Abr. c. 104, a. 3; 4 Kent, Com. 2, 381; Cruise's Dig. t. 1, §23; Toull. Dr. Civ. Fr. liv. 3, t. 1, c. 1, n. 80; Poth. Traite des Fiefs, part 1, c. 2; 3 Sumn. R. 170. Vide Livery of Seisin.