Bracton: Thorne Edition: English. Volume 2, Page 280

Harvard Law School Library

Bracton Online -- English

Volume 2, Page 280

Next

Go to Volume: Page:

[001] is indivisible and does not admit of partition or division, but let her be satisfied
[002] to the value elsewhere. Nor of anything which is not divisible by custom, for
[003] suppose the husband had but a single manor, whether the head of a barony or not,
[004] there will not be assigned her in her third part any portion of the chief messuage¹
[005] [She will take no part of the chief messuage whether there is one heir or several,
[006] since she does not share in the distribution as co-heir parceners do.]² ³according as
[007] it is walled about and enclosed by a moat, hedge or fence,⁴ [On this matter may
[008] be found [in the roll] of Trinity term in the [eighth] year of king Henry in the
[009] county of Essex, [the case] of a certain Idonea claiming dower.]⁵ nor anything
[010] contained within the close, as gardens, fishponds, or game preserves.⁶ What the
[011] law is if such things are outside the close will be explained below.⁷ But since she
[012] can take nothing of the chief messuage and ought not to be without one, let her
[013] choose [a messuage] of the villeinage, which seems to her sufficient, and rest content
[014] with that.⁸ If none is found in the villeinage, let a place sufficient for a messuage
[015] be provided her, to the value of a third part [of the inheritance], in length and
[016] breadth, not including the value of the buildings, and let a messuage be made from
[017] timber belonging to the estate.⁹ If there is no messuage of the villeinage nor any
[018] part of the demesne in which a messuage may be constructed, recourse must then
[019] of necessity be had to the chief messuage, as recourse is had in burgages to the
[020] free bench.¹⁰ All this is true unless from the first the heir is willing to grant her part
[021] of the chief messuage, which will clearly be permissible since the heir desires it.
[022] If in the same manor in which her third part is to be assigned there are several
[023] chief messuages, two or more, she will have at least one, provided the heir has
[024] first choice. But if she has been endowed of some entire manor specifically, or,
[025] regardless of how she was endowed, if it is agreed between her and the heir that she
[026] have some entire manor as her dower, she will have the whole with the messuages
[027] and the other appurtenances, unless something has been specially excepted or
[028] unless its value exceeds rightful dower. When a third part is to be assigned her,
[029] after the assignment of the messuage let her be assigned the third part of everything
[030] her husband held in demesne, in the state in which it is,¹¹ in arable land as it is,
[031] tilled or untilled, sown or unsown, and whether it is sown or unsown she shall give
[032] nothing for the cultivation.¹² Also the third part of

Notes

1. Glanvill, vi, 17

2. Supra 222

3. Om: Nihil enim...mesuagio,’ a connective

4. Supra 221

5. B.N.B., no. 1007; C.R.R., xi, no. 1673. All MSS. read ‘septimo’

6. Supra 222, 223

7. Infra 281

8. Supra 222

9. Ibid.

10. Supra 269; P. and M., ii, 419

11. Supra 276

12. Ibid.