Bracton: Thorne Edition: English. Volume 3, Page 104

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Volume 3, Page 104

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[001] not usurp to himself without judgment the sequela and chattels which follow the body,
[002] ¹the assise ought to proceed first on the disseisin, and when the statuliber has recovered
[003] by the assise, let his lord then first sue as to his status by a writ de nativis, and when,
[004] despite the replication of free status, he has recovered the body, he will then recover
[005] whatever follows it, that is, sequela, lands and chattels,² [because], had he sued it first,
[006] before restitution, [to him] claiming him in servitude no answer would ever be made³
[007] in the action on status, the exception of spoliation being an effective bar.⁴ When the
[008] question of status is litigated after the assise, the statuliber may then first put forward
[009] his privileges (by which he may protect himself in his free status forever) by way of
[010] exception, as that he is an ordained clerk⁵ or a knight,⁶ or has lived in a privileged
[011] vill⁷ or in the demesne of the lord king for a year and a day without claim,⁸ which he
[012] will have no need to do earlier unless he wishes.⁹ For in the first case, in the assise, his
[013] free status, without more, protects him; in the second his privileges protect his status
[014] when he is claimed into servitude by writ de nativis. When a villein outside the potestas
[015] of his lord and in a free status has recovered his seisin by the assise against his lord,
[016] whose villein he in truth is, despite the exception of villeinage, [if] a stranger who has
[017] no right intervenes and, though he has no interest, disseises him, and the villein
[018] brings the assise of novel disseisin, [and] the disseisor raises the exception of villeinage
[019] and, in proof of it, since he has no other proof, by kindred or in another way, puts himself
[020] on the assise, when the plaintiff is asked whether he wishes to put himself on the
[021] assise he may choose whether he wishes to put himself upon it as to his status, or
[022] replicate as above, that he need not put the question of his status to the assise, or to a
[023] jury of kindred,¹⁰ until he has been restored.¹¹ The result will be the same as above
[024] against his lord, for if the replication is good against the lord a fortiori it will be good
[025] against a stranger. Suppose that he freely puts himself on the assise as to his status,
[026] without making any replication, and the assise says that he is a villein; it is apparent
[027] that the stranger cannot acquire anything for himself by this verdict, since he is not
[028] his villein but another's, and whatever a villein acquires lawfully he acquires for his
[029] lord,¹² as though purchased with his money, not for a stranger, [for] though one is a
[030] villein he will not be anyone's villein, for there are individual rights in a villein, who¹³
[031] is either wholly mine or thine, or owned in common.¹⁴ If the stranger-disseisor claimed
[032] the thing, no action would lie for him; if the body of the villein, he could not prove him
[033] to be his, nor that [the thing] was bought with his money, which no one but the villein's
[034] lord may say, and whatever a villein acquires rightfully he acquires

Notes

1. Om: ‘sed’

2. Supra ii, 89, iii, 86, 88

3. ‘responderetur’

4. Supra 85, 88, infra 105, 113

5. Supra ii, 31, iii, 85

6. Supra 85; Glanvill, v. 5

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid.

9. Infra 113

10. ‘parentum,’ as 103

11. Infra 105

12. Inst. 1.8.1; supra ii, 87, iii, 87

13. ‘qui’

14. Supra 100