Bracton: Thorne Edition: English. Volume 4, Page 93

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Volume 4, Page 93

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[001] and not prove, because of the doubtful outcome of the essoin. There is also a messenger
[002] who is sometimes sent, or though he is not sent, to speak on behalf of an absent
[003] party as for a friend, and announce that an impediment has intervened so that the
[004] person summoned cannot come. He is properly called a messenger, not an essoiner,
[005] and ought to be heard so announcing up to the fourth day and sometimes beyond,
[006] until judgment on the default.¹

How often.

[008] How often. It is clear that it may be cast at any time after the essoin of difficulty in
[009] coming until ‘languor’ is awarded him, and he has ‘languor,’ that is, the year and
[010] day, because sometimes after ‘languor’ awarded, for good reason [and] with the
[011] consent of the demandant, licence to rise may be given the essoinee, that he may
[012] answer at once, though before the year and day that would not be granted for any
[013] reason without the consent of the demandant, and when he so answers and has a
[014] day, he may then, after an essoin of difficulty in coming, essoin himself of bed-sickness,
[015] because it does not suffice that ‘languor’ is awarded unless it is completed.²
[016] If there are several parceners holding in common, they may all essoin themselves, if
[017] they wish, together and on one day. And if ‘languor’ is awarded to all in an essoin
[018] of bed-sickness, the ‘languor’ of all will be, so to speak, one ‘languor.’³ If several are
[019] essoined of bed-sickness, when they are viewed after the essoin ‘languor’ may be
[020] awarded to some and passing illness to others; all who are ‘languid’ will have a
[021] year and a day at the Tower on the day on which the ‘languor’ is attested, not the
[022] others, but they will have a common day since they are not bound to answer without
[023] the others. When ‘languor’ has once been awarded to one or several and attested
[024] in court, none of the others will thereafter have an essoin of bed-sickness, except, as
[025] was said above, if licence to rise is given, but until the one or the several or all have
[026] ‘languor’ they will always have an essoin of bed-sickness. Also on one and the same
[027] day one of several may essoin himself of bed-sickness and his parcener, or several
[028] parceners, of difficulty in coming. If those who have essoined themselves of difficulty
[029] in coming [wish] to essoin themselves of bed-sickness on the second day, they
[030] cannot do so until it is clear whether the first essoinee has passing illness or ‘languor,’
[031] because if he has ‘languor,’ and that is established, and another similarly
[032] essoined himself of bed-sickness on another day and had ‘languor,’ there could thus
[033] in one plea, at one and the same time, be two

Notes

1. Supra 72, infra 148, 158

2. Infra 105

3. Infra 103, 114, 140, 141