Bracton: Thorne Edition: English. Volume 3, Page 377

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Volume 3, Page 377

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[001] was rendered that the woman could not claim dower because she was not married
[002] at the church door. These same concordant cases also show that the inquest as to
[003] such matters must be taken in the king's court and not in the ecclesiastical forum.
[004] Hence the woman must be asked where, when, and in what church she was married.
[005] And for making the inquest let this writ issue.

Writ that an inquest be held in the county by twelve, whether she was so endowed at the church door.

[007] ‘The king to the sheriff, greeting. We order you to cause to come before yourself
[008] and the keepers of the pleas of our crown in [your] full county court twelve, knights
[009] as well as other free and lawful men of such a vicinage, and to inquire diligently on
[010] their oath whether A. of N. on the day he married B. his wife in such a church endowed
[011] her of so much land with the appurtenances in such a vill, formally and at the church
[012] door as the aforesaid B. says, or whether he married her on his death bed without
[013] public ceremony and there endowed her, as the aforesaid, such a one, says. And
[014] make known to our justices by letters etc. and by two etc. the inquest which you
[015] have made thereon.’ A marriage may thus be lawful with respect to succession to the
[016] inheritance, regardless of where it has been contracted, provided it is proved, and
[017] unlawful as regards the exaction of dower unless it was contracted in the face of the
[018] church and dower was there constituted,¹ with whatever ceremony could then be
[019] employed,² whether it is during an interdict or not. When a man has named a dower
[020] at the church door, as was said above, a certain and specific dower or an uncertain
[021] and unspecified, quaere whether he may afterwards change the modus and the
[022] constitution of dower by augmenting or diminishing it. It is evident that he cannot,
[023] for as it was [constituted] at the church door, specified or unspecified, so may it be
[024] claimed and not otherwise,³ because of the words ‘and whereof she was endowed at
[025] the church door.’ These words, as was said above, must always be contained in a
[026] claim of dower because from them an exception arises for the tenant, that she was
[027] endowed in another way than at the church door.

The tenant may acknowledge that she was married but except that the marriage was afterwards dissolved.

[029] The tenant may acknowledge that the woman was married and dower constituted at
[030] the church door, but except that the marriage was afterwards dissolved and a divorce
[031] solemnized between her and her husband, because of consanguinity, compaternity
[032] or other affinity, and that so long as the marriage continued the action of dower
[033] continued, but with its failure the claim of dower fails. If that is proved, even in the
[034] king's court, she loses the dower. Against that exception she may replicate that if
[035] their marriage was challenged it was never

Notes

1. Supra 374

2. Supra ii, 266, iii, 372, 373, infra iv, 305

3. Supra ii, 275