In the Roman and civil law. A contract by which a landed estate was leased to a tenant, either in perpetuity or for a long term of years, upon the reservation of an annual rent or canon, and upon the condition that the lessee should improve the property, by building, cultivating, or otherwise, and with a right in the lessee to alien the estate at pleasure or pass it to his heirs by descent, and free from any revocation, re-entry, or claim of forfeiture on the part of the grantor, except for non-payment of the rent. Inst. 3. 25, 3; 3 Bl. Comm. 232; Maine, Anc. Law, 289.
The right granted by such a contract, (jus emphyteuticum, or emphyteutioarium.) The real right by which a person is entitled to enjoy another’s estate as if it were his own, and to dispose of its substance, as far as can be done without deteriorating it Mackeld. Rom. Law, s 326.