“The grand and fundamental maxim of al feudal tenure is this; that all lands were originally granted out by the sovereign, and are therefore held, either mediately or immediately, of the crown. The grantor was called the proprietor, or lord; being he who retained the dominion or ultimate property of the feud or fee: and the grantee, who had only the use or possession, according to the terms of the grant, was styled the feudatory or vassal, which was only another name for the tenant or holder of the lands; though on account of the prejudices we have justly conceived against the doctrines that were afterwards grafted onto this system, we now use the word vassal opprobriously, as synonymous to slave or bondman.” -from Blackstone, Book II, Loc 8240 of 29509, Kindle, as highlighted in yellow in mine
Note the word vassal, used above as a term of apparent opprobriation. We have no slaves today, or countenance any held by others. Vassals were indeed opprobrious at the time, especially if you were one yourself. The vassals got together at Runningmede later on, and agreed with King John, by the Magna Charta, that they would be vassals no more. Maybe a little bit. A bunch of vassals voted with their feet, and went to the New World, to live free or die. They have all died by now. Prior to that, they declared to King George the Next their independence, and made their own country, with a Constitution on which we in America base all our laws currently. It has worked out fairly well, being largely well attended, with only the one War of Civility. The important thing is that, once seized from the barbarous tribes, real estate has been transferred from hand to hand for a few centuries now in an orderly and well understood manner.
Until we have now come to the Mortgage Electronic Registration System, which for instance thoroughly diminishes, debases, and disguises all definition of ownership of an acre of land in County Burnet of Texas, especially in that common early state of affairs as between a mortgagor and mortgagee. The previous owner is quit and gone; the future owner is yet to be; and the transactional cash flow is drawn and quartered to maximize the speculative yield, as much to investors in Byelorussia of a few microseconds as to a chartered Federal Depository Institution of responsible and aged counselors. There ought to be a law! In fact, there is, and it may well be unconstitutional. We have yet to judge.