Bracton: Thorne Edition: English. Volume 3, Page 211

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Volume 3, Page 211

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[001] may be had as to the presentation and the person of the presentor.¹ If certainty may
[002] still not be reached, let recourse be had to predecessors as far back as time permits
[003] the assise to go, and when it can proceed no further, let recourse then first be had to
[004] the property and the writ of right,² that by it the property may be determined, and
[005] the assise. If the jurors do not know whether he or his ancestor presented, or another,
[006] or who, by a finding of that kind the plaintiff will obtain nothing,³ having failed, so
[007] to speak, in his proof, for so long as there is doubt whether something exists it is as
[008] though it did not exist. And so [if] they do not know the plaintiff at all, or though they
[009] know him do not know whether he ever presented, or whether he is the son and heir
[010] of him who last presented, whose seisin he claims, and consequently cannot know
[011] whether the action or plaint belongs to him. But if these matters are known, it may
[012] easily be determined for whom judgment will be given by the assise.

When both parties appear in court let the plaintiff present his claim.

[014] When both are present and the deforciant wishes to oppose the assise.⁴ After the
[015] writ has been heard, the plaintiff must first support his intentio in this way:⁵ [The
[016] intentio and narratio ought to be certain, and the foundation of it certain, and certain
[017] the thing brought before the court, and there ought to be real proof for the demandant
[018] or plaintiff, or at least a presumption, which will always stand until, by excepting
[019] and proving his exception, the tenant or deforciant establishes the contrary.] ⁶He
[020] ought to show on whose seisin he brings the assise, whether on his own [or that of an
[021] ancestor. If on his own,] how he holds, in fee, for life or for a term, the corporeal thing
[022] to which the advowson is appurtenant, or the advowson itself, that is, the right of
[023] advowson without the thing or body to which it adheres. If on the seisin of some
[024] ancestor, he must show that he is the heir of the ancestor whose seisin he claims,
[025] either separately and by himself, without others, or with others, in common and
[026] without separation, [where several are, so to speak, a single heir, all must be named,]
[027] or in common and⁷ separately and successively, in which case it suffices if he sues to
[028] whom the presentation belongs on this occasion, or where the right to present on the
[029] seisin of a single ancestor

Notes

1. ‘praesentantis’

2. Cf. infra 227

3. Infra 227

4. Rubric

5. Om: ‘et doceat . . . actio’

6. Om: ‘Ille autem . . . intentionem suam,’ a connective

7. ‘et’