Bracton: Thorne Edition: English. Volume 3, Page 221

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Volume 3, Page 221

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[001] the assise and the owner claims the advowson, or the tenement to which the advowson
[002] belongs, by writ of right, and while the plea is pending the church falls vacant,
[003] the demandant cannot present before he has deraigned the advowson or the tenement.
[004] The replication may also be made against the assise that he who brings it has
[005] no seisin, nor did any of his ancestors have right in the advowson claimed, [because
[006] they held] only for life in some way, or for a term, so that no right could¹ descend to
[007] heirs. If a woman, after the death of her husband replies to the warrantor of her dower
[008] presenting and claiming his own seisin or that of his ancestors by the assise, that the
[009] presentation belongs to her, excepting by reason of the dower she has in the vill in
[010] which the church is situated, as to which she has impetrated² a writ of quare impedit
[011] against her warrantor, we first must see how the dower was constituted, if she has
[012] the third part of some vill and claims that by reason of that third part she may present,
[013] at least every third time,³ or if she was endowed of the whole manor with all its
[014] appurtenances, no reservation made, or with the advowson excepted. If of the whole
[015] manor in its entirety, without any reservation, her action will be good; if the advowson
[016] was excepted, it will not, unless something is alleged to the contrary, by special
[017] agreement.⁴ If she was endowed of a third part, she then has no right in the presentation,
[018] despite the fact that the church is situated in her third part, unless her right
[019] arises out of some special arrangement, as where she is endowed of a third part with
[020] the whole advowson, no matter where the church is situated,⁵ but if⁶ in some other
[021] way her action will fail, not only because the bishop does not admit clerks to fractions,⁷
[022] nor, though it may admit of division, has a church several heads like a monster,
[023] [And that the bishop does not admit [to] fractions may be seen, as [in the roll]
[024] of Hilary term in the fourteenth year of king Henry in the county of Suffolk, [the
[025] case] of Maria de Valoines and Herbert of Alencun]⁸ but also because by reason of
[026] her third part she may claim no right at all in the advowson, neither in part of it nor
[027] in the whole at certain turns, unless there is some special arrangement which permits
[028] it, as was said, as may be been by an example. For the constitution of dower is similar
[029] in some ways to a gift.⁹ Suppose therefore that one has a manor with an advowson
[030] and gives the whole to several different persons, or gives several portions successively
[031] to one, retaining to himself some very small part, and that he gives

Notes

1. ‘potuit’

2. ‘impetraverit’

3. Supra ii, 277, infra 225

4. Supra ii, 278

5. Supra ii, 222, 225

6. ‘si’

7. Supra ii, 277

8. B.N.B., no. 380; C.R.R., xiii, no. 2464 (sidelined)

9. Supra ii, 165, 278