Our Legal Heritage: The First Thousand Years: 600 - 1600: King Aethelbert - Queen ElizabethReilly, S. A.
History
Our Legal Heritage: The First Thousand Years: 600 - 1600: King Aethelbert - Queen Elizabeth
Reilly, S. A.
Law -- England -- History
If an heir who is a minor is married off without the consent of
the guardian, the value of the marriage will be lost and the
wrongdoer imprisoned. If anyone marries off an heir over 14
years of age without the consent of the guardian, the guardian
shall have double the value of the marriage. Moreover, anyone who
has withdrawn a marriage shall pay the full value thereof to the
guardian for the trespass and make amends to the King. And if a
Lord refuses to marry off a female heir of full age and keep her
unmarried because he covets the land, then he shall not have her
lands more than two years after she reaches full age, at which
time she can recover her inheritance without giving anything for
the wardship or her marriage. However, if she maliciously
refuses to be married by her Lord, he may hold her land and
inheritance until she is the age of a male heir, that is, twenty
one years old and further until he has taken the value of the
marriage.
Aid to make one's son a knight or marry off his daughter of a
whole knight's fee shall be taken 20s., and 400s.[yearly income
from] land held in socage 20s. [5%], and of more, more; and of
less, less; after the rate. And none shall levy such aid to make
his son a knight until his son is 15 years old, nor to marry his
daughter until she is seven year old.
A conveyance of land which is the inheritance of a minor child by
his guardian or lord to another is void.
Dower shall not abate because the widow has received dower of
another man unless part of the first dower received was of the
same tenant and in the same town. But a woman who leaves her
husband for another man is barred from dower.
A tenant for a term of years who has let land from a landlord
shall not let it lie waste, nor shall a landlord attempt to oust
a tenant for a term of years by fictitious recoveries.
When two or more hold wood, turfland, or fishing or other such
thing in common, wherein none knows his several, and one does
waste against the minds of the others, he may be sued.
Lands which are given to a man and his wife upon condition that
if they die without heirs, the land shall revert to the donor or
his heir, may not be alienated to defeat this condition.
If a man takes land in marriage with a wife, and she dies before
him, the land will revert to the donor or his heir, unless they
have a child, in which case the husband will have the land by
the courtesy of the nation for his life before it reverts to the
donor or his heir.
A free tenant may alienate his land freely, but if the alienation
was for an estate in fee simple [to a man and his heirs], the
person acquiring the land would hold of the land's lord and not
of the person alienating the land. (This halted the growth of
subinfeudation and caused services as well as incidents of aids,
relief, escheat, wardship, and marriage to go directly to the
Chief Lord. It also advantaged the Crown as overlord, which then
acquired more direct tenants.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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