Bracton: Thorne Edition: English. Volume 2, Page 417

Harvard Law School Library

Bracton Online -- English

Volume 2, Page 417

Next

Go to Volume: Page:

[001] and day the deed was supposed to be done he was elsewhere, outside the realm,
[002] or if in the county in so remote a part of it that it would be quite unlikely that he
[003] could have done what is alleged against him.¹ He may also except on the ground
[004] of an omission made in the appeal, because she says no more than that he lay with
[005] her, no mention made of her maidenhood. Many other matters may constitute
[006] exceptions though I do not now call them to mind.

Where the appellee is convicted by the country; the punishment that follows.

[008] When there are no grounds for avoiding the appeal and if the appellee has been
[009] convicted by the country, let him, without any [question of] ransom, lose his eyes
[010] and his testicles for the reason aforesaid,² unless, before judgment rendered, the
[011] woman thus defiled claims him for her husband, for this lies wholly in her discretion,
[012] not in that of the man, for if it lay in his discretion this unseemliness would result,
[013] namely, that ³a villein or a common person might bring perpetual disgrace upon a
[014] woman of nobility and good family by a single act of defilement⁴ and take her to
[015] wife to the disgrace of her family. But suppose that the ravisher is a noble man and
[016] the woman raped a common person; will it be for the defiled woman to exercise a
[017] choice and decide whether she will marry the noble man or not, for apparently the
[018] same unseemliness would result on the side of the noble man? I answer that whether
[019] the man is noble or common, the woman noble or common, the choice and the
[020] decision will always rest with the woman, for what is a voluntary act on her part
[021] will be a necessary act on his, that he may redeem his members. Thus since she
[022] has that choice, and [if], spurning a judgment, she claims him for her husband,
[023] let him by grace of the king be granted⁵ to her, in furtherance of marriage. If she
[024] chooses the judgment, execution of the judgment having been had against the
[025] defiler let the appeal proceed against those appealed as accessories. Several may be
[026] accessories, but only one shall be held for the defilement, though the several may be
[027] liable for lying with her, ⁶for to defile a virgin and to lie with one defiled [are different
[028] deeds].⁷ And since the deeds are different it is evident that the same punishment
[029] ought not to follow in both cases. That the same punishment does not follow upon
[030] both is true, that is,⁸ unless the accessory's act is so closely linked to the first act of
[031] ravishment [that they cannot be separated].⁹ Let the appeal then be made against
[032] those appealed as accessories in this way:

Of those appealed as accessories.

[034] ‘The said A. appeals C. for that on the same day and the same year etc. on which
[035] the aforesaid B. [etc.], and at the same hour that the said B. took her maidenhood,
[036] the said C.

Notes

1. Supra 204, infra iv, 299

2. Supra 414

3-4. Glanvill, xiv, 6

5. ‘concedatur’

6-7. ‘quia corrumpere ... corrupta [diversa sunt facta],’ from line 28

8. ‘scilicet’ for ‘sed’; om: ‘non’

9. ‘quod separari non possunt,’ as supra 401