Bracton: Thorne Edition: English. Volume 2, Page 38

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Volume 2, Page 38

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[001] as those by which the men aforesaid hold, not in villeinage,¹ [nor are they bondsmen,²
[002] nor were they such at the Conquest as the class first mentioned was,] but
[003] under an agreement made with their lords,³ so that some of them have their charters
[004] and some have not; according to some, those ejected from such tenements will
[005] recover their seisin by the assise of novel disseisin.⁴ And since they have novel
[006] disseisin their heirs will have mortdancestor.⁵

Free men in the manor of the lord king.

[008] ⁶There are also other kinds of men in the manors [of] the lord king's demesnes, who
[009] like men elsewhere hold freely, in free socage or by military service,⁷ by virtue of a
[010] new feoffment made since the Conquest.

Free men under the potestas of lords.

[012] ⁸Under the potestas of lords are free men held as bondsmen, who sometimes assert
[013] their liberty⁹ [and] who, since they are free, may be called statuservi, for the same
[014] reason that bondsmen, when they are fugitives and beyond the potestas of their
[015] lords, may be called statuliberi. Of these more will be said below.¹⁰

Notes

1. Infra 90

2. Ibid.

3. Infra 90, iii, 34, 39, 131-2

4. Infra 90, iii, 34, 39; contra iii, 35, 108, 131

5. Infra iii, 273, 292-3

6. Br. and Azo, 82, 83

7. Infra 90, iii, 39, 108, 132

8. Br. and Azo, 84

9. For the phrase, D. 40.12; D. 40.13

10. Infra 89, iii, 102 ff.