Bracton: Thorne Edition: English. Volume 2, Page 169

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Volume 2, Page 169

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[001] what he has once given he cannot resume de jure, nor give to others, especially a
[002] thing of which he is not in seisin,¹ ²[nor] grant them to the prejudice [of the liberties]
[003] of others, as where he has first granted to one the liberty of having warren throughout
[004] all his land and fee and then grants the same [right] to another within the same
[005] liberty; he does him an injuria and curtails the liberty first granted, which he has
[006] perhaps used for a long time.³ If he does so de facto, and if, after the charter of
[007] liberty has been publicly read and heard, the second donee begins to use and is
[008] hindered by the first, without his having first shown the matter to the lord king
[009] that he may revoke and amend his act,⁴ which is arbitrary rather than just, he may
[010] lose it forever, because on his own authority he prevents the operation of the lord
[011] king's act and resists him, which no one may lawfully do, and which is even more
[012] serious than to question his act,⁵ as [in the case] of the abbot of St. Albans and
[013] Galfrid of Childewike, decided at Westminster before the lord king himself,⁶ where
[014] the same Galfrid retained his warren because the same abbot, without showing the
[015] circumstances to the lord king, obstructed his use. Nor may he change them de jure,
[016] as where he grants his tenant the liberty of having no sheriff or bailiff enter into his
[017] land or fee for making a summons or attachment, or a distraint for service, and
[018] attorns the service of his tenant to another and grants to such person⁷ the return
[019] of writs; he will not have it, contrary to the liberty earlier granted to his tenant, who
[020] first had⁸ the return, lest⁹ the tenant be constrained to take¹⁰ from the hands of
[021] a mesne what he formerly received directly by the hands of sheriffs¹¹ or bailiffs,
[022] and because one cannot attorn the service of his tenant to another to his damage or
[023] injury.¹² [This is true unless it occurs with the tenant's consent or through negligence
[024] or prolonged acquiescence.] Suppose the lord king grants a certain liberty to two,
[025] as where [he first grants] to a universitas, as to citizens or burgesses or others, that
[026] they may have a market and fair in their vill, city or borough, and may take
[027] customs and tolls and be quit of rendering toll or any other customary due throughout
[028] the whole of his realm, both on land and sea, and afterwards [grants] a similar
[029] liberty to others in his realm, that they may take and be quit, as above. We [then]
[030] must see which of them

Notes

1. ‘quod semel ... fuerit,’ from 169, lines 4-6

2-3. ‘[nec] illas concedere ... multa tempora,’ from last line 168 to 169, line 4; reading: ‘in praeiudicium libertatum aliorum’

4. Supra 33, 110, infra iii, 43, iv, 159

5. Reading: ‘et quod etiam magis est quam’; supra 33, 109, infra iv, 159

6. Not in B.N.B.; coram rege 1251, Michaelmas; B.N.B., i, 39; Gesta Abbatum (Rolls ser.) i, 315-19

7. ‘tali’

8. ‘habuit;’ n. 31 opposite, which should attach to ‘habuerit,’ is erroneously attached to ‘habebit’ in the line above

9. ‘ne’

10. ‘accipere;’ ‘recipere,’ LA, MG, Y

11. vicecomitum’

12. Infra 237-8