Bracton: Thorne Edition: English. Volume 2, Page 271

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Volume 2, Page 271

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[001] of dower (since she ought not to be left unendowed) to revert to the tenant
[002] immediately after her death.]¹ unspecified and uncertain, where one endows
[003] his wife generally of a third part of all his lands and tenements, acquired and
[004] to be acquired. ²Just as one may endow his wife in certain and specified lands,
[005] so, whether he has lands and tenements or not, he may endow her in a definite sum
[006] of money, especially if he is a burgess without any tenement outside the borough,³
[007] [whether he has holdings outside or not.] In that case, when the wife has once
[008] professed herself satisfied with that sum as her dower she can claim nothing
[009] more in the name of dower from her husband's other chattels or tenements than
[010] what has been constituted her.⁴ Hence if she claims some portion of the chattels
[011] in the name of dower she ought not to be heard, for as she ought to obtain her
[012] dower in full as long as a single halfpenny remains, or as fully as the chattels of her
[013] husband permit, so if there is more she shall obtain nothing further; as she is
[014] willing to profit to the extent that the chattels suffice, so she ought to bear the
[015] loss if there is a surplus.⁵ But she may make a further claim on some basis other
[016] than dower, as by reason of a testamentary causa [or by force of an approved
[017] custom,] if her husband has left her something in his will in addition to her
[018] specified dower, [or unspecified, certain or uncertain.] As dower may be constituted
[019] in money, so may it be in things that are reckoned by weight and measure,
[020] both liquid and solid, in one or the other or in both. Dower may be constituted by
[021] one husband to several wives as well as to one, while all are alive, or successively,
[022] when they die or after a divorce has been had for some reason, in the same realm⁶
[023] or county or in different ones, but in an action of dower one will be preferred to the
[024] others, it having been established in the ecclesiastical court which of them is his lawful
[025] wife,⁷ [If proof is difficult or wholly lacking, the wife in possession of the husband
[026] at the time of his death will have to be preferred:]⁸ [for] if, when one has a lawful
[027] wife, he acquires another and unlawful one, or several, his lawful wife will be
[028] preferred. [if none of the several is in possession and it cannot be established which
[029] of them is his lawful wife, none of them will obtain, for lack of proof.] If one wife
[030] has married several husbands, when they die she will not obtain dower from them
[031] all since she could not be the lawful wife of them all at the same time, only of one,
[032] though she could be successively, as will be explained below in [the portion on] the
[033] action of dower.⁹ ¹⁰If a person in the hope of making acquisitions endows his wife
[034] of all the lands and tenements he holds on the day of the marriage, [or of all those
[035] that he will acquire],¹¹ that constitution is invalid

Notes

1. Infra iii, 364, 368, 370, 398

2. New paragraph

3. Reading: ‘sine aliquo tenemento exteriore’; Gl. vi, 2: ‘terram non habens’

4. Glanvill, vi, 2

5. Supra 180

6. Infra iii, 386-7

7. Infra iii, 357, 363, 372, 384

8. Continued in brackets below; infra iii, 374

9. Infra iii, 363

10. New paragraph

11. As Fleta, v. ca. 23: ‘si autem constituatur dos fraudulenter de tertia parte omnium tenementorum perquirendorum,’ and Britton (ii, 242): ‘Et si dowarie desceivablement soit establie de trestouz les tenements qe le baron purchesera ...’; Longrais, 418-19