Bracton: Thorne Edition: English. Volume 3, Page 192

Harvard Law School Library

Bracton Online -- English

Volume 3, Page 192

Next

Go to Volume: Page:

[001] Many other wrongful nuisances may be committed, as will be explained briefly below,
[002] but let what has here been said suffice for the present by way of example.

That things wrongfully erected to the nuisance [of another] may be demolished immediately and without delay.

[004] Things so erected [or destroyed or demolished] to the wrongful nuisance [of another]
[005] may be immediately demolished and thrown down [or re-erected and restored] while
[006] the misdeed is still fresh,¹ as in the case of other disseisins, if the plaintiff is able to do
[007] so. If not, recourse must be had to him who safeguards rights;² he will have his remedy
[008] by this writ.

Writ touching the same.

[010] ³The king to the sheriff, greeting. Such a one has complained to us that such a one
[011] wrongfully and without judgment constructed a certain wall (‘bank,’ ‘hedge,’
[012] ‘palisade,’ ‘house,’ ‘gate,’ ‘bridge,’ ‘pond,’ ‘sluice,’ ‘weir,’ ‘mill’ [or] ‘sheep fold’)
[013] in such a vill to the nuisance of his free tenement in the same vill after our last return
[014] from Brittany to England.⁴ Therefore we order you to hear that plea and cause him
[015] to be justly dealt with therein. Lest we hear further etc. Witness etc.’ [Similarly, a
[016] writ may be drawn as to the foregoing in the reverse way: ‘why one wrongfully cast
[017] down such things to the nuisance of his free tenement etc.’ Also ‘why he raised a
[018] pond,’ [or] ‘why he obstructed (or ‘narrowed’) a road to the nuisance [etc.],’ [or]
[019] ‘why he diverted a water-course,’ and the like.] [It is clear that if anyone does something
[020] in one county which causes harm in another, the writ will always be impetrated
[021] to the sheriff of the county in which the nuisance was done.] Thus the correction of
[022] these things sometimes belongs to the sheriff by the aforesaid writ, and similarly,
[023] with respect to the road obstructed, by the writ ‘that he justice,’ because of the
[024] common welfare, lest travelers be too long delayed,⁵ ⁶<If one does something ⁷ to
[025] prevent another from going to a spring, a lake, a well [or] a fish-pond or from drawing
[026] from a spring, such persons may fall into the assise.⁸ ⁹[Servitudes] are not only for the
[027] conducting of water but also for drawing it, and thus the servitudes of conducting and
[028] of drawing water are distinct.¹⁰ ¹¹ If one is prohibited from using the water, or from drawing it or driving his cattle to it,¹² he also falls into the assise. ¹³ But this is not so in
[029] the case of a cistern because

Notes

1. Supra 164, 189, infra 193

2. C. 3.28.35.pr.

3. Cf. Glanvill, xiii, 35, 36

4. Date fixed 1237: B.N.B., no. 1217

5. Supra 164, 189, infra 193, 196

6. Supra i, 402; Barton in Tulane L. Rev., xlii, 559

7-8. Reading: ‘si quis aliquid fecerit . . . ire possit vel haurire de fontana aqua, tales cadere . . . in assisam’; D. 43.22.1.1

9-10. Ibid.: ‘Servitutes enim non tantum aquae ducendae esse solent verum etiam hauriendae, et sicut discretae sunt servitutes ductus aquae et haustus aquae’; reading: ‘sic’ for ‘sed’

11-12. D. 43.22.1.2: ‘Hoc autem interdictum locum habet si quis uti prohibeatur aqua, hoc est sive haurire sive etiam pecus ad aquam appellere’

13-14. D. 43.22.1.4: ‘Hoc interdictum de cisterna non competit, nam cisterna non habet perpetuam causam nec vivam aquam . . . cisternae autem imbribus concipiuntur denique constat interdictum cessare, si lacus, piscina, puteus vivam aquam non habeat’