Bracton: Thorne Edition: English. Volume 3, Page 154

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Volume 3, Page 154

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[001] where there is no causa for distraining, or [if there is] it does not belong to the distrainor.¹
[002] If there is a causa, the distress may be levied without observing the proper
[003] order, [it will still be simple,] as where one distrains his tenant by his demesne lands
[004] when he has a villeinage. [Or] if he distrains the tenant of his tenant, though it is his
[005] [the lord's] fee, when his tenant, the mesne, has sufficient demesne.² [Or] if the distress
[006] is levied by immovables, when there are movables, [inanimate] or animate, [or] by
[007] immovable and inanimate movables, when there are animate movables, [or] by animate
[008] movables within the estate, when there are sufficient for distraint outside, [or]
[009] by plough-oxen³ when there are less profitable animals by which he may be distrained
[010] with less damage, [If, though there are other things sufficient for distress, it is made
[011] by plough-oxen, so that cultivation is made impossible or difficult, this distraint
[012] ought to be called a disseisin rather than a trespass,]⁴ this injuria is simple. If there
[013] is a causa and the order is observed, the distress may still be wrongful, if it is excessive
[014] and exceeds due measure in any respect, for a heavy distraint ought not to be levied
[015] for a slight offence or for a slight service,⁵ since there is a mean in things, there are
[016] certain limits fixed beyond and short of which right cannot exist,⁶ and this is similarly
[017] simple. Even if all is done in the proper order and with due measure there may
[018] be trespass in a distress, as when beasts taken for distress are taken out of the county,
[019] so as to avoid their release by gage and pledges,⁷ unless that is done for a proper
[020] reason, as where the head of the barony and the court of the chief lord is outside the
[021] county.⁸ And so if all is done properly and the distress is within measure and reasonable,
[022] if (whether there is a causa for distraining or not) the beasts seised are refused
[023] release by gage and pledges; that refusal will not only constitute an injuria to the
[024] plaintiff but to the lord king,⁹ since it is against his peace, because where gage and
[025] pledges fail, peace fails. ¹⁰Thus, summing up all that was said above, according as it
[026] is wholly or in part a presumptuous act it will be a simple or a double or a greater
[027] trespass, and according as it is a major or a minor trespass it will or will not be the
[028] equivalent of a disseisin. How distresses ought to be levied for services,¹¹ [more fully
[029] above [in the portion] or distraints.]¹² A disseisin

Notes

1. Reading: ‘ubi nulla subfuerit causa distringendi, vel si subsit non pertineat ad distringentem’

2. Supra ii, 78, iii, 117

3. ‘boves’

4. Infra 155

5. B.N.B., no. 477 (margin)

6. Horace, Satires, i, 1, 106; supra ii, 249, infra 184

7. ‘plegios’

8. Supra ii, 443

9. Supra ii, 439, 446

10. New sentence

11. Deleted

12. Supra ii, 439