Bracton: Thorne Edition: English. Volume 3, Page 132

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Volume 3, Page 132

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[001] for if one may do a greater thing he may obviously do a lesser. There is also another
[002] kind of villeinage, held of the demesne of the lord king¹ from the time of the Conquest,²
[003] called villein socage, which is villeinage but privileged. Accordingly, the tenants on
[004] the demesnes of the lord king have the privilege of not being removable from the soil,
[005] as long as they wish to and are able to do the service required,³ ⁴<Nor can they be
[006] compelled to hold such tenements against their will,⁵ which is why they are called
[007] free.> and are properly called ascripticii glebae.⁶ The services they do are villein services,
[008] but certain and specified. They can neither give their tenements, nor transfer
[009] them to others by the causa of gift, any more than pure villeins may. Thus if they
[010] ought to be transferred they restore them to the lord or his bailiff and they transfer
[011] them to the others, to be held in villeinage.⁷ There is the manor of the lord king and
[012] the demesne in the manor.⁸ In the manor there are several conditions of men,⁹ either
[013] because they were such from the beginning or because the villeinage was altered¹⁰ [as]
[014] knights and free tenants, holding by military service and in free socage.¹¹ There are
[015] also adventitious tenants,¹² who hold in the same way as villein sokemen but by agreement.¹³
[016] They do not have the privilege, as do the other villein sokemen, only an agreement,
[017] and hence if such persons complain, nothing¹⁴ will be allowed them except their
[018] agreement. Among other matters it must be noted that one may have the right and
[019] the property and the fee in a free tenement and another the free tenement. One may
[020] have the fee and free tenement and another the mere right. One may have all these
[021] and another the usufruct. One may have all these and the use and another the fruits,
[022] and by virtue of the fruits or the rent, a free tenement. Thus it seems that two have a
[023] free tenement in one and the same thing, but in truth it is not in the same thing, for
[024] the tenement is the body from which the rent issues and is thus a separate thing by
[025] itself, [and] the rent which issues from the tenement is a separate thing by itself and
[026] a body. With respect to the statement¹⁵ that one person may have¹⁶ all the above and
[027] also the use and another the fruits, that may be shown, as where one gives another
[028] some certain portion of the produce of his tenement which he holds in demesne and
[029] cultivates, for example, the third sheaf or the fourth, now in one field now in another;
[030] though the fields are uncertain, [that is], in what year they ought to be cultivated,
[031] nevertheless [if] what he ought to receive when the fields are cultivated [is certain], he
[032] has a free tenement, as does he who supplies them, one in the tenement, the other in
[033] the rent.¹⁷ By virtue of the fact that

Notes

1. ‘de dominico domini regis,’ supra 34

2. Supra ii, 37-8, 90

3. Supra ii, 37, iii, 107

4. Not in list of addiciones, supra i, 399

5. Supra ii, 37, 89, iii, 107

6. Supra ii, 37

7. Supra ii, 90

8. Hoyt, Royal Demesne, 180 n., 193 n.

9. Supra ii, 37; iii, 39

10. Supra 39

11. Supra 39, 108

12. Supra 34

13. Supra ii, 37-8, 90, iii, 34, 39

14. ‘nihil’; om: ‘privilegium’

15. ‘dicitur’

16. ‘habeat’

17. Supra 130-31