Bracton: Thorne Edition: English. Volume 4, Page 222

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Volume 4, Page 222

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[001] because of the incumbrance of the prior's predecessor. Thus it appears that whether a
[002] feoffee who is mesne is a wrongful detainor or has enfeoffed others thereof and so incumbered
[003] the tenement, whether he himself is impleaded by the assise or is vouched
[004] to warranty by his tenant on his own deed,¹ that his own feoffor will not be bound to
[005] warrant, though he is bound [to warrant him] against strangers² who had right in the
[006] property before his feoffment.³ In that case the warranty binds from the last feoffee
[007] to the first feoffor, and each feoffor is bound to warrant his own feoffee in order, [when
[008] they have been enfeoffed to themselves and their heirs; if to themselves and their
[009] heirs or to whom they wish to give or assign, the assignee or donee will then have his
[010] choice of vouching his own feoffor to warranty or the feoffor of his feoffor directly,
[011] because of the modus of the first gift. Thus it is necessary to consider whether one has
[012] been enfeoffed in the one way or the other.] Suppose that A. first enfeoffs B. and B.
[013] dies leaving an heir within age; A. takes the inheritance into his hand by reason of
[014] wardship and enfeoffs C., who dies seised thereof leaving an heir within age, and A.
[015] again takes the land into his hand by reason of wardship. When either of the heirs
[016] brings an assise of mortdancestor against A. he cannot vouch a warrantor, because of
[017] his own act and his own incumbrance, but let the assise [of the heir] of the last feoffee
[018] proceed first; when he has recovered the assise brought against A. by the first feoffee's
[019] [heir] then falls and will begin again against the [heir of the] last feoffee, that he may
[020] vouch A. to warranty; and when the heir of the first feoffee recovers against A., let the
[021] heir of the last feoffee have [escambium] to the value from the warrantor's land.⁴ What
[022] is said of one feoffee must be observed in the case of several feoffees and their heirs ad
[023] infinitum, as where A. enfeoffs B., B. C., C. D., D. E., and so ad infinitum. If one of the
[024] chief lords, up to the first feoffor, [obtains possession of the land] lawfully, as by gift
[025] or in the name of wardship or through any other lawful cause, or wrongfully, as by
[026] intrusion of disseisin, whether he holds the tenement in his own hand and is impleaded
[027] thereof, or enfeoffs others collaterally, one or several, together or successively, and is
[028] vouched to warranty,

Notes

1. ‘de facto proprio,’ as 223, line 4

2. Om: ‘de waranto . . . personas’

3. Om: ‘quod . . . principale,’

4. Supra iii, 302