Executors and administrators afford the chief, if not the only, example of universal succession in the English [346] law.  But although they succeed per universitatem, as has been explained, they do not succeed to all kinds of property.  The personal estate goes to them, but land takes another course.  All real estate not disposed of by will goes to the heir, and the rules of inheritance are quite distinct from those which govern the distribution of chattels.  Accordingly, the question arises whether the English heir or successor to real estate presents the same analogies to the Roman heres as the executor.

The English heir is not a universal successor.  Each and every parcel of land descends as a separate and specific thing.  Nevertheless, in his narrower sphere he unquestionably represents the person of his ancestor.  Different opinions have been held as to whether the same thing was true in early German law.  Dr. Laband says that it was; 1 Sohm takes the opposite view. 2 It is commonly supposed that family ownership, at least of land, came before that of individuals in the German tribes, and it has been shown how naturally representation followed from a similar state of things in Rome.  But it is needless to consider whether our law on this subject is of German or Roman origin, as the principle of identification has clearly prevailed from the time of Glanvill to the present day.  If it was not known to the Germans, it is plainly accounted for by the influence of the Roman law.  If there was anything of the sort in the Salic law, it was no doubt due to natural causes similar to those which gave rise to the principle at Rome.  But in either event I cannot doubt that the modern doctrine has taken a good deal of its form, and perhaps some of its substance, from the mature system [347] of the civilians, in whose language it was so long expressed.  For the same reasons that have just been mentioned, it is also needless to weigh the evidence of the Anglo-Saxon sources, although it seems tolerably clear from several passages in the laws that there was some identification. 1

As late as Bracton, two centuries after the Norman conquest, the heir was not the successor to lands alone, but represented his ancestor in a much more general sense, as will be seen directly.  The office of executor, in the sense of heir, was unknown to the Anglo-Saxons, 2 and even in Bracton’s time does not seem to have been what it has since become.  There is, therefore, no need to go back further than to the early Norman period, after the appointment of executors had become common, and the heir was more nearly what he is now.