Bracton: Thorne Edition: English. Volume 2, Page 32

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Volume 2, Page 32

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Of the hermaphrodite.

[002] ¹A hermaphrodite is classed with male or female according to the predominance of
[003] the sexual organs.²

Of manumission.

[005] ³How bondsmen may be made free by manumission, who may manumit and who
[006] may not, will be explained more fully below [in the portions] on actions [‘de nativis’]
[007] and fugitive villeins.⁴

That God is no respecter of persons though men are, since some rule over lands in spiritual matters, some in temporal.

[009] ⁵God is no respecter of any men whomsoever, free or bond, ‘for there is no respect
[010] of persons with God,’⁶ for as to Him, ‘he that is greatest, let him be as the smallest;
[011] and he that is chief as he that doth serve.’⁷ But with men, in truth, there is a
[012] difference between persons, for there are some of great eminence [who] are placed
[013] above others and rule over them: in spiritual matters which belong to the priesthood,
[014] the lord pope, and under him archbishops, bishops and other less exalted
[015] prelates; in temporal matters which pertain to the kingdom, emperors, kings and
[016] princes,⁸ and under them dukes, earls and barons, magnates or vavasours and
[017] knights, also freemen and bondsmen. Various powerful persons are established
[018] under the king, namely, earls, who take the name ‘comites’ from ‘comitatus’,⁹
[019] or from ‘societas,’ a partnership,¹⁰ [who may also be called consuls from
[020] counseling,] for kings associate such persons with themselves in governing the
[021] people of God, investing them with great honour, power and name when they
[022] gird them with swords, [that is, with sword belts.

What belts are.

[024] ¹¹Ringae are so called because renes girant, because they gird and encircle the
[025] loins, hence the phrase, ‘Gird thee with thy sword etc.’¹² Belts gird the loins of
[026] such that they may guard themselves from the luxury of wantonness, for the
[027] wanton and unchaste are abominable before God.]

What the sword signifies.

[029] ¹³[for] the sword signifies the defence of the realm and the country. There are other
[030] powerful persons under the king who are called barons, that is, ‘belli robur,’ the
[031] strength of war. Others are called vavasours, men of great dignity. A vavasour
[032] cannot be better defined than a vessel selected for strength, that is, ‘vas sortitum ad
[033] valitudinem.’ ¹⁴Also under the king are knights, that is, persons chosen for the
[034] exercising of military duties, that they may fight with the king and those mentioned
[035] above

Notes

1. Br. and Azo, 57, 62

1-2. Azo, Summa Inst. 1.5, no. 5

3. Br. and Azo, 57, 61, 63; this portion belongs supra 31, at n. 13

4. Infra 84 ff., iii, 84 ff., as infra 37, n. 4

5. Br. and Azo, 57, 59, 63

6. Rom. 2:11

7. Luc. 22:26

8. Cf. Fleta, i, ca. 5: ‘in temporalibus imperator, sub quo sunt principes et reges’

9. The royal curia: infra 110; the variant ‘comitiva’ (unnoticed opposite, but in Br. and Azo, 59, n. 5) is adopted in Fleta, i, ca. 17 (Selden Soc. vol. 72, p. 36)

10. Infra 110

11. Br. and Azo, 59, 63

12. Psalm. 44:4

13. Br. and Azo, 59, 63, 65

14. Supra i, 117-19 (full collation)