Bracton: Thorne Edition: English. Volume 2, Page 242

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Volume 2, Page 242

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[001] claims that the tenant do, or the tenant that the lord take by writ de homagio
[002] capiendo, in either case, by way of questions and answers the matter may be
[003] brought to the duel or the grand assise, [unless, because of the disavowal, the lord
[004] wishes to claim the land in demesne by writ of right, as was said above,]¹ as
[005] where one is summoned² by the writ de homagio capiendo and the plaintiff puts
[006] forward the reason why he who was summoned ought to take his homage, [saying]
[007] that his [the plaintiff's] father held of him or of such other person, [his] ancestor,
[008] by such service and did him homage so that he [the plaintiff] for that reason ought
[009] to hold of him by such service and he [the defendant] ought to take his homage,
[010] the lord may deny the service and homage done and allege categorically that the
[011] plaintiff holds no land of him and ought not to hold any, by a champion, or put
[012] himself upon the grand assise by these words, ‘whether he against whom complaint
[013] is made has a greater right to hold that land in demesne than the plaintiff has of
[014] holding it of him.’ For it may well be that such plaintiff or his ancestor did homage
[015] to the ancestor of him against whom complaint is made but never had seisin in the
[016] lifetime of that ancestor, or that he took such homage and the other put himself in
[017] seisin on his own authority, without warrant and contrary to the will of the donor;
[018] thus he may claim the land in demesne, as was said above. On this there is matter
[019] in the eyre of the abbot of Reading and Martin of Pateshull in the county of
[020] Warwick in the fifth year of king Henry, [the case] of Robert of Halford,³ who
[021] sought before them that one should take his homage and reasonable relief from the
[022] free tenement he held of him and claimed to hold of him in such a vill, as to which
[023] he said that his father had held so much land of him by such service and that
[024] he thus ought to hold it of him, and this he offered [to prove] and sought that he
[025] take his homage. And the defendant came and denied, [saying] that he ought not
[026] to take his homage therefrom because he ought to hold that land⁴ in demesne, and
[027] thus he put himself on the grand assise by the words mentioned above.

If a tenant on his own authority abandons his lord and turns to another and does him homage.

[029] Though a [tenant], on his own authority and without judgment, diverts⁵ his service
[030] from his lord, or from the non-lord to whom he has done homage, the homage will
[031] still continue. But if when he claims or distrains for the service

Notes

1. Supra 235

2. Reading: ‘ut si summonitus sit quis’

3. Not in B.N.B.; Selden Soc. vol. 59, no. 1495

4. ‘terram’; Glanvill, ix, 7

5. ‘diverterit’