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[001] without other addition, the demandant cannot obtain anything by the action, for
[002] if he who holds the land1 has neither warrant nor right, the demandant can obtain
[003] nothing by his writ, because though it is proved that the tenant has no right, it is
[004] not thereby proved that the demandant has right, and before the demandant may
[005] acquire anything another writ and another action will be necessary. But though it
[006] is unlawful to force a possessor by quo jure or quo warranto to disclose the title of
[007] his possession, nevertheless [he may be compelled to disclose] whether he holds as
[008] heir or as possessor,2 that the demandant may know by what action he ought to sue.
[009] He possesses as heir who thinks that he is heir;3 as possessor, who possesses hereditary
[010] property or an entire inheritance by no right, knowing that it does not belong
[011] to him.4

When the parties have appeared in court, how the demandant ought to put forward his claim.


[013] 5After essoins and delays, or on the first day of the summons by writ of right, when
[014] both the demandant and the tenant have appeared in court, the demandant must
[015] put forward before the justices the action he wishes to sue and his intentio and so
[016] show the form of the future suit. The writ of right having been heard, according as
[017] it is closed or patent, let the demandant or his advocate say in the presence of the
[018] justices sitting as a court,6 ‘A. shows you this, that B. wrongfully deforces him of so
[019] much land with the appurtenances in such a vill, wrongfully for this reason, because
[020] one of his ancestors, C. by name, was vested and seised thereof in his demesne as of
[021] fee and right in the time of king Henry the grandfather of the lord king (or ‘in the
[022] time of king Richard, the uncle of the lord king’ or ‘in the time of king John, the
[023] father of the lord king’ or ‘in the time of the king Henry who now reigns’) taking
[024] thence esplees to the value of five shillings or a half mark, as in grain, hay,7 rents
[025] and other issues of the land. And from the aforesaid C. the right of that land
[026] descended (or ‘ought to descend,’ according to some)8 to one D. as son and heir,
[027] and from the aforesaid E. to this A. who now claims as son and heir. And that it is
[028] his right he offers to prove by the body of such a one his free man, or in some other
[029] way as the court may decide.’ For it is not sufficient simply to put forward his claim
[030] by saying ‘I claim so much land as my right,’ unless he supports it thus [and] shows
[031] that the right belongs to him and in what way and through what degrees the right
[032] ought to descend to him.9



Notes

1. ‘ille qui terram tenuerit,’ from preceding line

2. C. 3.31.11: ‘cogi possessorem ab eo qui expetit titulum suae possessionis dicere incivile est, praeter eum qui dicere cogitur utrum pro possessore an pro herede possideat’; supra ii, 323

3. D. 5.3.11.pr.

4. D. 5.3.12-13: continued infra 363: Defaults in personal actions

5. Continued from supra 61

6. ‘pro tribunali sedentem’: D. 4.1.7.pr.

7. ‘fenis,’ as Glanvill, ii, 3

8. Supra ii, 198, infra 174

9. Infra 353


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