Bracton: Thorne Edition: English. Volume 4, Page 345

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Volume 4, Page 345

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[001] holds in service. It is here in the election of the demandant whether he wishes the
[002] writ to stand or fall, according as he holds himself to claiming in demesne and in
[003] service against the tenant,¹ so that the writ stands, or claims the whole in demesne,
[004] in which case the writ falls. The tenant can also say in answer, as above, that he holds
[005] nothing at all, either in demesne or service, or in alms or advowson; if this is proved,
[006] the writ falls.

If the tenant does not hold the whole because another holds [so much] of the appurtenances.

[008] If the tenant says that he does not hold the whole because another holds so much of
[009] the appurtenances or of the body of the manor, as an advowson or so much land, the
[010] demandant may replicate that he need not except that part, either because it in no
[011] way belongs to the appurtenances but belongs and has always belonged to another
[012] land and to another fee, of which he claims nothing,² or if it at one time belonged to
[013] the body or the appurtenances, that his chief lord who enfeoffed him thereof alienated
[014] that part before he enfeoffed [him, or before] he enfeoffed the ancestor whose seisin
[015] he claims, and that he claims nothing except what his ancestor held the year and day
[016] on which he was enfeoffed, because after that feoffment nothing was alienated or
[017] transferred.

That it was once among the appurtenances but afterwards ceased to be.

[019] The demandant may say that when the lord king gave that manor with the appurtenances
[020] to such an abbot, enfeoffing him thereof by his charter, that land was not
[021] part of the body of the manor nor of its appurtenances, because it had earlier been
[022] given by the king, and the same abbot gave it to his ancestor by his charter in the
[023] same state in which the abbot had it of the king's gift, as the king's charter testifies,
[024] [and that he claims] in demesne what the abbot had in demesne before he made his
[025] gift and in service what he had in service, in alms and advowsons. He may also say
[026] that the abbot [held] that land from the conquest of England, [by the charters of all
[027] kings] from king to king and always defended himself by saying that he held that
[028] land with such appurtenances in alms of the kings, as [in the roll] of the eyre of Martin
[029] of Pateshull, of pleas reserved for judgment from divers counties in the third year of
[030] king Henry in the county of Kent, [the case] of William earl Marshal the elder and
[031] Fawkes de Breaut‰.³ To the same intent [in the roll] of Trinity term in the fourth year
[032] of king Henry in the county of Bedford, [the case] of William earl Marshal.⁴ Clearly
[033] to the same intent

Notes

1. ‘tenentem’

2. Infra 347, 348-9

3. B.N.B., no. 102; C.R.R., viii, 248 (Hil 4; Bedford) and 250 (Kent)

4. C.R.R., ix, 205 (Bedford, Kent); not in B.N.B.