Bracton: Thorne Edition: English. Volume 4, Page 102

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Volume 4, Page 102

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[001] it is old and resummoned. Then let the rolls, both of pleas and of essoins, be inspected,
[002] in order to ascertain under what circumstances the parties withdrew from
[003] court on the last day of the suit, from which it may easily be found who is entitled
[004] to an essoin and who is not. If several persons are named in the writ, some of whom
[005] have essoined themselves and some not, let mention be made in the margin as follows:
[006] ‘the other’ or ‘others.’ If there is a warrantor, or jurors or recognitors, let mention be
[007] made in the margin as follows: ‘Let the warrantor be exacted’ or ‘Let the jurors be
[008] exacted.’ And in the same way let mention be made of all whom the matter touches,
[009] whose presence is necessary. If a husband is essoined, let mention be made on the
[010] essoin as follows, that ‘he has a wife,’ and conversely. If they [the wife or husband]
[011] are present, let them have the same day. If they default, let proceedings be taken
[012] against them [both], as will be explained below [of defaults.] If the tenant has essoined
[013] himself and neither the demandant nor the writ has come within the fourth
[014] day, let the essoiner be told to go as he came; [the tenant] is not judicially discharged
[015] from court.¹ The justices, since they have neither warrant nor writ, can establish
[016] nothing against the absentee. If the writ afterwards comes and the day of summons
[017] has not passed, the matter may proceed to default on that day, or though the day has
[018] passed the plea may be revived of the justices' grace, as [in the roll] of Trinity term
[019] in the thirteenth year of king Henry in the Middlesex eyre, near the end of the roll.²
[020] But if the writ has come but not the demandant, and the tenant essoins himself, the
[021] tenant's essoiner offering himself³ in court on the fourth day on behalf of his lord, the
[022] essoiner will withdraw judicially quit of that writ and the demandant will be in mercy;
[023] let the enrolment be made as follows: ‘Such a one, the essoiner of such a one, offered
[024] himself on the fourth day against such a one with respect to such a plea and he did
[025] not come and was the demandant; the essoiner therefore sine die.’ If the day of the
[026] summons arrives and neither of them has appeared, and the writ comes, then, of grace,
[027] the demandant's essoin may be admitted after an interval to save his writ and his
[028] day, because this is to the prejudice of none, or proceedings may be taken to default,
[029] and let the tenant blame himself for his default, because had he appeared he could
[030] have withdrawn quit by judgment. Where the essoin of difficulty in coming lies, and
[031] where it does not, may be sufficiently drawn from the foregoing. Essoins of the Holy
[032] Land, of beyond the sea, and of the service of the lord king, of whatever sort, do not
[033] arise from the nature of the writs but from fortuity and circumstances, and therefore
[034] they are not to be judged according to the nature of the writs. There are two writs, as
[035] was said above,⁴ from which the two essoins proceed, that is, of difficulty in coming

Notes

1. Supra 65, infra 161; ‘ab iudicio’; om: ‘observatione’

2. Not in B.N.B.; Middlesex eyre: C.R.R., xiii, p. xxi

3. ‘se’

4. Supra 97