[001] the proprietas descends to the nearer heir immediately after the death of the ancestor, [002] to one who is present or absent, knows of it or does not, is of age or a minor, a male [003] or a female, a madman or one non compos mentis, an idiot or a fool, or one born deaf [004] and dumb, but possession is not at once acquired by such persons, because before the [005] inheritance is taken up another, a kinsman or stranger, may put himself in seisin, and [006] from such seisin the possessory right may descend to his heirs below, through the [007] negligence of him who has the proprietas, as where, when the proprietary right [008] descends to an elder brother and nearer heir, a younger brother puts himself in seisin, [009] and after so long an interval that he cannot be ejected without writ, dies so seised; [010] he transmits to his heirs, with the possessory right, which he had, so to speak, in fee, [011] a kind of proprietary right with that possessory right which ought to follow the first [012] proprietas, and so from heir to heir ad infinitum. Thus there will be two proprietary [013] rights through different descents and through different persons and degrees. But one [014] of them will have the greater proprietary right because of priority, as the elder [015] brother and his heirs, and those who descend from the younger brother will have a [016] lesser right, but possession ought always to be preferred until the heirs descended [017] from the elder brother vindicate the proprietary right, and [so] if,1 when the younger [018] brother has several sons a younger puts himself in seisin and dies so seised, as was [019] said, and so from heir to heir. In this way the proprietary right may descend to [020] several through different persons, degrees and lines of descent, so that there may be [021] several proprietary rights and several may have a greater right than others, according [022] as they are earlier or later. And the same is as true of strangers as kinsmen, in whatever [023] way they put themselves in seisin.
Several may have right, one a greater, the other a lesser.
[025] One may say in his intentio that he has a right in the thing claimed though he has no [026] right at all, which may be drawn [from] the narration of the descent. And so though [027] he has some right, as a co-heir,2 as
Volume 4, Page 351
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