Bracton: Thorne Edition: English. Volume 4, Page 295

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Bracton Online -- English

Volume 4, Page 295

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[001] ‘Brother, you have no right in that land even though a marriage took place, because
[002] the marriage contracted between your father and mother was illegal, since he had
[003] earlier married another who was alive at the time he married your mother.’ The enquiry
[004] in this case is to be transmitted to court christian, because a determination as
[005] to which of them is his lawful wife and which is not is not within the province of a
[006] secular judge. Bastardy may be raised with a reason specified, as above, yet the enquiry
[007] will not be entrusted to court christian, [because it is not within the province
[008] of an ecclesiastical judge to decide as to the priority or posteriority of the birth of him
[009] against whom bastardy is raised once the espousals or marriage are admitted, any
[010] more than if one had said, ‘Brother, you have no right to that land, and if you have
[011] you cannot claim it, because you claim from the time of king Henry the grandfather
[012] or beyond, which bars every action.’]¹ as where the tenant says, ‘Brother, you have
[013] no right in the land claimed because you are a bastard, and for this reason, because
[014] you were born so long a time before the espousals or marriage was contracted between
[015] your father and mother,’ because once the marriage is admitted, the king may
[016] well enquire in his court, without prejudice to any one, whether he against whom
[017] the objection is raised was born before marriage or after, just as he may enquire in
[018] other cases whether he was born in the time of king Henry or king John, [especially
[019] because of the default of the bishops, who are contrary to the laws and customs of
[020] England,] and no more wrongful than if the king in a plea of dower in his court
[021] should cause an enquiry to be made as to whether a woman claiming dower was
[022] endowed at the church door or elsewhere, or whether the espousals or marriage were
[023] public or secret. [And when in the king's court, in the twentieth year of his reign, on
[024] the morrow of St. Vincent,² at Merton, before the venerable father Edmund, [then]³
[025] archbishop of Canterbury, and all his suffragans and before the greater part of the
[026] earls and barons of England, present there for the coronation of the king and queen,
[027] for which all had been summoned,

Notes

1. Supra 23, 170, infra 359

2. 23 Jan. 1236

3. Died 16 Nov. 1240