Bracton: Thorne Edition: English. Volume 2, Page 235

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Volume 2, Page 235

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[001] of the lord, be dissolved and extinguished in the person of the tenant, and revive
[002] in the person of another, as where a tenant, after he has done homage to his lord,
[003] gives up his inheritance completely and enfeoffs another to hold of the chief
[004] lord. The tenant is then released from homage and it is extinguished [in his person],
[005] whether the chief lord wishes it to be or not, and begins to exist in the person of
[006] the feoffee, who is bound because of the tenement [he holds], which is the fee of the
[007] chief lord.¹ Homage thus extinguished in the tenant may again be revived in his person,
[008] but [only] by virtue of another causa,² as where his feoffee restores the same tenement
[009] to him to hold of the same chief lord. ³Homage may be extinguished and the
[010] obligation dissolved on both sides, in many ways, so that the tenement given for
[011] homage and service will remain to the chief lord as his escheat in demesne: because
[012] of the failure of heirs, as where a tenent, enfeoffed to himself and his heirs, specified
[013] or unspecified, dies without any heirs whatever, or without an heir of his body,⁴
[014] so that the tenement falls into demesne; [In that case the homage and the obligation
[015] are extinguished completely: the homage, because there are no parties between
[016] whom it can be contracted, since it may only be contracted between two persons;
[017] the obligation, because heirs are lacking in whose persons the homage may be
[018] raised.] because of felony, as where a tenant has committed a felony or done some
[019] other act because of which he ought to be disinherited, whereupon homage is
[020] extinguished and the obligation dissolved on both sides, for the reason aforesaid,⁵
[021] and the tenement reverts to the chief lord in demesne as his escheat, as will be
[022] explained more fully below [in the portion] on escheats.⁶ ⁷[And so] when one has done
[023] homage and service to his lord and has wickedly disavowed him completely, [claiming]
[024] that he holds nothing of him, to the disherison of the lord to whom he was bound
[025] by homage and the oath of fealty, whereupon though homage and the obligation
[026] continues on the part of the lord, if he so wishes, it does not hold on the part of the
[027] tenant, since by denying his lord he destroys the homage and the bond of fealty.
[028] Two remedies are clearly available to the lord, either that he claim in demesne the
[029] tenement his tenant ought to hold of him,⁸ because he is disavowed by the tenant in
[030] whose person the obligation fails, or, since the obligation continues in his own person,
[031] claim the service and remit the tenement to the tenant as a matter of grace.⁹ [If the
[032] former], it is important to see by what writ. If by writ of right, as some say, that does
[033] not seem possible, unless¹⁰ he

Notes

1. Supra 234, infra 237

2. Supra 231

3. New paragraph

4. Supra 82, 144

5. Supra 233

6. ‘Et qualiter ... plenius,’ from lines 18-19

7. Om: ‘Item extinguitur ... fidelitatis’

8. Infra iii, 116

9. Infra 243, iii, 36

10. ‘nisi’