Bracton: Thorne Edition: English. Volume 2, Page 374

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Volume 2, Page 374

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[001] neither to homages,¹ fealties or oaths nor to other things extinguished by the
[002] outlawry, against the will of those by whose consent they were previously contracted
[003] and affirmed,² and therefore not to inheritances or tenements to the prejudice
[004] of their lords; thus they cannot be restored to anything pertaining to the
[005] right.³ No one is bound to them by virtue of previous obligations but they themselves
[006] are bound to all, lest their position be improved by the outlawry when the
[007] reverse ought to be true.⁴ The inlawed may in truth be said to be, so to speak,
[008] new-born infants⁵ and new men, as though newly created, because after outlawry
[009] properly done nothing of the past abides in their persons but (after inlawry) only
[010] the present and the future take its place. They are restored to everything pertaining
[011] to the peace, that they may return to the kingdom and depart from it at their
[012] pleasure, or remain within it if they so wish, providing for their future out of
[013] acquisitions, as they did before, by bargaining, contracting, buying or selling in
[014] steadfast assurance of the king's peace.

What a felon may forfeit.

[016] ⁶<What a felon forfeits and for whom is sufficiently discussed above.⁷ But when he
[017] contrives to be restored we must see where he must be restored of right and where
[018] of grace, and where [he cannot be restored], neither of right nor of grace but only
[019] of the king's will. And when he has been restored of right or of grace after outlawry,
[020] to what he may be restored and to what he may not. ⁸When a man goes into
[021] hiding because of suspicion and ill repute⁹ and on being summoned before the
[022] justices does not appear, he loses his chattels at once, because of his flight, though
[023] he appears at once, before outlawry.¹⁰ One may be outlawed because of flight,
[024] whether the cause is true or presumptive, [I call it ‘presumptive’ because of the
[025] flight alone, though there is no true cause, [and] though there is none, as where he
[026] alleged to be slain makes his appearance alive.¹¹ I call a cause ‘true’ whether he was
[027] slain feloniously or by misadventure.] ¹²[and] if he is restored, after an outlawry
[028] correctly promulgated according to the law of the land, everything having been
[029] properly done, [he is restored] neither to his chattels nor his inheritance, not to
[030] his chattels because of his flight, not to his inheritance because of the outlawry
[031] properly done, but only to the peace,¹³

Notes

1. ‘homagia,’ as 363

2. Supra 363, infra 374, 376

3. Supra 363

4. Drogheda, 120: ‘nemo ex delicto suo meliorem facit suam condicionem, sed deteriorem’

5. Pet. i. 2:2: ‘sicut modo geniti infantes’

6. Supra i, 356, 387

7. Supra 362 ff.

8. New paragraph

9. ‘rettum’

10. Supra 352, 354, 358, 362, 363

11. ‘et cum nulla subsit, ut cum ipse,’ from lines 26-7; supra 356, 357, 358, 372, 373, infra 375

12. Om: ‘In omnibus . . . praesumptiva,’ a connective

13. Supra 373; infra 375