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[001] such husband and say that the wife later, in her liege widowhood, confirmed her husband's
[002] gift, or remitted to him all her right and claim. As to her statement, ‘whom
[003] she could not gainsay in his lifetime,’ he may answer that she was personally in the
[004] king's court with her husband, and freely and willingly agreed to and ratified that
[005] gift, without coercion of any kind, which may be determined by inspecting the rolls,
[006] which would not be so if this were done outside the royal court, for there could there
[007] be coercions against her will, which would not be permitted in the court of the lord
[008] king, for there violence is shown to no one nor fear struck into anyone, nor is it likely
[009] that anyone was compelled to do or not do anything by force, since there help may
[010] safely be invoked.1 We must distinguish here, with respect to whether it may be
[011] revoked or not, whether the gift was made by the husband for an honest and necessary
[012] cause and the common welfare of the husband and wife or only for a wilful cause. If
[013] for an honest reason, as where a gift is made to their son or in maritagium with a
[014] daughter, this will be an honest cause and for that reason to be sustained, no matter
[015] where made. If only for a wilful cause and to no good purpose, then coercion has been
[016] used or it has not. If it has, which may readily be drawn from the countenance and
[017] bearing of the woman, a chirograph is never drawn in the king's court, though
[018] enrolment may be permitted, but with difficulty.2<Note that enrolment by itself
[019] without a chirograph will never bar the woman's action after her husband's death.>
[020] 3<If the wife dies first, their common heir will never recover by any action, since he is
[021] bound as heir of his father, because of the homage and service which falls to him from
[022] his father's feoffment, to warrant his father's gift,4 which the mother never revoked
[023] in her lifetime, lest he be lord and tenant of the same tenement.5 But if, when his
[024] mother claimed, he was vouched to warranty and lost, and was bound to escambium
[025] from his father's inheritance, so that his father's gift was destroyed and the homage
[026] between him and his father's feoffee dissolved, when his mother obtains and the
[027] maternal inheritance which she obtained by judgment descends to him, homage once
[028] extinguished never revives.6 But if the husband enfeoffs to hold of the chief lords, or
[029] if he has an older son by another wife,



Notes

1. Glanvill, prolog.

2. Supra i, 410

3. Belongs below, 32-3

4. Om: ‘contra’; infra 33

5. Supra ii, 192

6. Infra 32, 33; reading: ‘obtinuerit et hereditas materna quae per iudicium obtinuit descendat ad ipsum numquam reviviscit homagium quod semel est extinctum.’


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