Bracton: Thorne Edition: English. Volume 2, Page 187

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Volume 2, Page 187

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[001] Easter term in the eleventh year of king Henry in the county of Sussex, [the case]
[002] of John of Montacute.¹ But suppose that the husband does not recognize such issue
[003] as his heir and dies having turned him out; though after the husband's death he is
[004] recognized as heir by a guardian, or some other person not entitled to the inheritance,
[005] such recognition will be valueless. When such a child or a supposititious
[006] child is born, let the husband immediately send him away and not raise him as his
[007] son, either at home or elsewhere, or permit him to return.² On this matter may be
[008] found [in the roll] of Michaelmas term in the fourth and the beginning of the fifth
[009] years of king Henry in the county of Lincoln, [the case] of Bartholomew son of
[010] Richard,³ where the tenant was prepared to put himself on the grand assise or on
[011] the country with respect to the right, as to whether he had a greater right to hold
[012] the claimed land in demesne than the demandant, who claimed as one who had not
[013] been regarded as a son by their common father, nor raised as a son in the father's
[014] house, but had been sent from it, and as one who in his father's lifetime never
[015] returned to him as a son and after his death did not for a long time come to the chief
[016] lords to do to them what he ought rightfully to do. In this case the tenant retained
[017] without an assise, jury, or inquest, because the demandant could not deny the
[018] allegations.

Of the differentiation of children.

[020] Since it was said above that natural and legitimate children are called to the
[021] succession before others, it will be useful here to consider ⁴the status of children and
[022] the differences between them, which are many. Some children, as said above, are
[023] natural and legitimate, those born in lawful wedlock and of a lawful wife. Some
[024] are natural only and not legitimate, as those born of a legitimate concubine with
[025] whom a marriage was possible at the time of procreation, as between an unmarried
[026] man and unmarried woman. Some are neither legitimate nor natural, as those
[027] born of prohibited intercourse, of persons for whom no marriage was possible at
[028] the time of procreation; such children are spurii who are fit for nothing.⁵ Some
[029] natural and legitimate children are children and heirs, as those to whom an inheritance
[030] descends, either from the father or the mother or from both, in demesne or
[031] in service.⁶ Some are children and not heirs of one but children [and heirs of the
[032] other], according as the inheritance descends only from the father's side or the
[033] mother's.⁷ And some are natural and legitimate children but heirs of neither,
[034] because no inheritance descends to them from either side. [Some may begin to be
[035] heirs and cease,⁸ some may not.] Of those who are natural, legitimate and heirs,⁹
[036] all, however many they are, are right and lawful heirs, as many as descend by
[037] degrees from the common origin, first through the right line

Notes

1. B.N.B., no. 247; C.R.R., xiii, no. 24

2. Infra iii, 311

3. B.N.B., no. 303; C.R.R., ix, 302; infra 191

4-5. Raymund de Pe±afort, Summa de casibus, iv, 24.1, 3; Richardson in E.H.R., lix, 381; Azo, Summa Cod. 5.27, no. 2

6. Infra iii, 278

7. Ibid.

8. Infra iii, 278-9

9. quidam sunt propinqui ... remotiores,’ transposed infra 188, n. 8