Our Legal Heritage: King AEthelbert - King George III, 600 A.D. - 1776: June 2011 (Sixth) EditionReilly, S. A.
History
Our Legal Heritage: King AEthelbert - King George III, 600 A.D. - 1776: June 2011 (Sixth) Edition
Reilly, S. A.
Law -- England -- History
One could sell or give away his land without the consent of one's lord.
The services of the land, however, could only be sold to the chief lord.
Inheritance of land was to all sons by equal portions, and if there were
no sons, then to all daughters in equal portions. The eldest brother has
his choice of portion, then the next oldest, etc. The goods of a
deceased person were divided into three parts after his funeral expenses
and debts were paid. One third went to the surviving spouse. One third
went to the deceased's sons and daughters. One third could be disposed
by will of the decedent. If there were no children, one half went to the
spouse and one half went according to will. If an heir was under 15
years old, his next of kin to whom inheritance could not descend was to
be his guardian. A wife who remarried or bore a child lost her dower
land. A husband lost his dower if he remarried. If a tenant withheld
rent or services, his lord could seek award of court to find distress on
his tenement and if he could find none, he could take the tenement for a
year and a day in his hands without manuring it. It the tenant paid up
in this time, he got the tenement back. If he didn't within a year and a
day, however, the lord could manure the land. A felon forfeited his life
and his goods, but not his lands or tenements. A wife of a felon had the
dower of one half or her husband's lands and tenements.
The common law recognized the tort of false imprisonment if a man
arrested as a felon, a person who was not a felon.
- Judicial Procedure -
The writ of Quo Warranto [by what right] is created, by which all
landholders exercising jurisdictions must bring their ancestors'
charters before a traveling justice for the Common Pleas for examination
and interpretation as to whether they were going beyond their charters
and infringing upon the jurisdiction of the Royal Court. As a result,
many manor courts were confined to manorial matters and could no longer
view frankpledge or hear criminal cases, which were reserved for the
royal courts. In the manor courts which retained criminal jurisdiction,
there was a reassertion of the obligation to have present a royal
coroner, whose duty it was to see that royal rights were not infringed
and that the goods of felons were given to the Crown and not kept by the
lords.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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