Bracton: Thorne Edition: English. Volume 3, Page 18

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Volume 3, Page 18

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OF THE ASSISE OF NOVEL DISSEISIN

How possession lost by wrongful force may be restored by the assise of novel disseisin.

[003] ¹We have shown above how possession, acquired by whatever causa of acquisition,
[004] may be transferred to another with the possessor's consent. Now we must explain
[005] how, once acquired, it may be taken and lost, without his consent, by wrongful force.
[006] [Then] how and by what action [possession] so lost may be restored to the person
[007] despoiled, for no one ought to be disseised of his free tenement without judgment, nor
[008] put to answer for it without the precept of the lord king and without writ.² First we
[009] must see how and in what ways a disseisin is committed, then the kind of remedy
[010] available, at once or after a time, ³<[and then] what punishment follows.> [Something]
[011] must first be known of the trespass or injuria and the nature of the act,
[012] that the kind of remedy and the punishment that follows may then more readily be
[013] understood. <In this action of novel disseisin, which arises ex maleficio, one seeks the
[014] thing itself and the penalty ([which] is personal)⁴ as [in the action] vi bonorum raptorum,⁵
[015] and also the damages he sustained during the spoliation.⁶ The penalty is
[016] threefold:⁷ one because of the spoliation against the peace, for which a corporal
[017] punishment is exacted, another because of the wrongful detention, for which a
[018] pecuniary penalty is exacted, and also an added penalty, arising out of custom not
[019] right, that the principal disseisor, he alone, not the others, though all are convicted
[020] by the assise, give⁸ the sheriff an ox.>⁹ A disseisin is committed not only when one is
[021] himself driven out of his tenement, of whatever kind, violently, wrongfully and without
[022] judgment, or when his procurator or members of his household, in seisin in his
[023] name, are so ejected, but also if, when ¹⁰he has gone to market or into foreign parts,
[024] no one left in possession, another enters and refuses to admit him on his return,¹¹ or
[025] when he attempts to enter, by himself or with the help of others, forcibly repels him.
[026] A disseisin is committed not only where one ejects the true lord himself, his procurator
[027] or his household, or refuses to admit him or repels him on his return, but also where
[028] he prevents him, or his procurator or his household, though still in possession, from
[029] using [the tenement] at all, or

Notes

1. Supra i, 142-54 (full collation)

2. Supra ii, 302, 318

3. Supra i, 391; from below

4. Supra ii, 324, infra 26, 157

5. Supra ii, 291; ‘vi’ for ‘vis’

6. ‘Item . . . spoliatonis,’ from lines 18-19

7. Infra 26, 75, 76

8. ‘dat’

9. Infra 76, 160

10-11. D. 41.2.6.1: ‘qui ad nundinas profectus neminem et . . . aliquis occupaverit possessionem’; D. 43.16.1.24: ‘nemine suorum relicto, mox revertens prohibitus sit ingredi . . . vi deiectus videtur’; G’terbock, 161