Bracton: Thorne Edition: English. Volume 2, Page 117

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Volume 2, Page 117

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[001] will warrant to such a one and his heirs so much land with the appurtenances
[002] [and acquit and defend them] against all men in perpetuity by the aforesaid service,’
[003] this must be understood to mean ‘so much land with the appurtenances of all the
[004] services and secular demands due to the lords of the fee by reason of the aforesaid
[005] tenement.’¹ Thus services due to the lord king for justice or the peace, as suits to the
[006] county and hundred courts, the three suits to courts mentioned above,² sheriff's aids
[007] and payments toward communal fines and amercements are excluded, since they
[008] belong not to lords of fees but to the king.] ³For if he so wishes a lord may bind
[009] himself to what is not owed, and, if he wishes, remit to his tenant what is owed to
[010] him,⁴ as where he remits to him wardship, marriage and relief when they fall due.⁵
[011] Things which belong to the king, however, he cannot remit, ⁶<to the prejudice of the
[012] lord king,>⁷ [nor] can he bind and burden himself <and acquit his tenant when such
[013] require the actual presence of men,⁸ as the view of frankpledge and other matters
[014] introduced for the peace and common welfare. Nor may the lord grant them to his
[015] tenant if he himself has such liberties by grant of the lord king, any more than he can
[016] delegate others to be justices, since he himself is the justice of the lord king in that
[017] place, unless the king himself confirms the act and grant of the enfeoffing lord. But
[018] then by the king's confirmation the lord's deed is [not] strengthened, [so that] the
[019] lord may not act contrary to his deed, the king to his confirmation, [though it would
[020] be otherwise if it were not to anyone's prejudice except [the lord's] own,]⁹ [because]
[021] such liberties belong to the king only, not to the other.>¹⁰ One may be enfeoffed by
[022] another for the performance of several kinds of services, that is, a service in money,
[023] that of rendering scutages, and by serjeanty, one or several. If only in money, without
[024] scutage or serjeanty, or if he is bound to two services disjunctively, that is, to give
[025] a certain thing for service or a sum in money, that tenement may be called socage.
[026] If the donor adds scutage and royal service, if only a single halfpenny's worth,
[027] or a serjeanty, it may, as was said above, be termed a military fee.¹¹

[The warranty clause].

[029] In a charter of gift this clause is sometimes added, ‘and I and my heirs will warrant
[030] to such a one and his heirs only (or ‘to such a one and his heirs or assigns’ or
[031] ‘[and] the heirs of his assigns’ or ‘the assigns of his assigns and their heirs’) and
[032] to them we will acquit and defend all that land with the appurtenances (as was
[033] said above)¹² against all men

Notes

1. Supra 115

2. Supra 112

3. Om: ‘nisi ipsi . . . carta sua,’ a connective

4. ‘tenenti ei’

5. Infra 146, 148, 248, iv, 318

6. Supra i, 378

7. Infra iv, 251, 268-9, 278, 283

8. C.R.R., xii, no. 2531 (Easter 10); B.N.B., no. 1752 (margin): ‘Nota quod ad warantiam carte feoffator teneatur warentizare et defendere de omnibus sectis et aliis que pertinent ad dominum, tamen de visu franci plegii et aliis que pertinent ad Regem et pacem suam non, ubi quilibet respondere debet per personam propriam’

9. ‘[si] hoc non fuerit ... proprium,’ from lines 21-2

10. Infra 167

11. Supra 116

12. Supra 67