stitutione sive ex impositione de voluntate dominorum. Item pertinere poterunt sine constitutione per longum usum continuum et pacificum et non interruptum per aliquod impedimentum contrarium ex patientia inter praesentes, quae trahitur ad consensum 1. Et unde licet servitus expresse non imponatur nec constituatur de voluntate dominorum, tamen si quis usus fuerit per aliquod tempus pacifice sine aliqua interruptione nec vi nec clam nec precario, quod idem est quod de gratia, ad minus sine judicio disseisiri non potest; quia si violentia adhibeatur nunquam erit jus disseisitoris propter temporis diuturnitatem, nisi per negligentiam ipsius qui vim patitur ex longa et pacifica et continua possessione inter praesentes, secus inter absentes, et talis seisina multipliciter poterit interrumpi 5. Si autem fuerit seisina clandestina scilicet in absentia

2

1 The rule of Roman law was, as laid down by Ulpian (Dig. lib. xli. tit. iii. 10. § 1), 'Hoc jure utimur ut servitutes per se nusquam longo tempore capi possint, cum aedificiis possint.' That is, where a house (or other immoveable thing) which has been acquired by usucapio has attached to it certain rights over the property of another, there servitudes are acquired together with the house, etc. But no servitude per se can be acquired by long user. The law appears to have been different in Cicero's time, but the possibility of acquiring servitudes by usucapio was abolished as inconsistent with the true principles of law by the Lex Scribonia, see Pothier, ~Dig. lib. xli. vii. Compare Dig. lib. xli. tit. i. 43. § 1: ‘Incorporales res traditionem et usucapionem non recipere manifestum est.' The doctrines of Roman law as to the acquisition of rights of ownership over things are here adapted by Bracton to the acquisition of rights in re aliena. This took root in our law. The rights in question can be acquired by prescription. Rights of ownership over things cannot be so acquired, but the remedies (and now the rights, 3 and 4 Will. IV, c. 27, s. 34) of the true owner are extinguished by the lapse of a defined period.

2 See Dig. lib. xliii. tit. xxiv. I. Praetor ait, "Quod vi aut clam factum est, qua de re agitur, id quum experiendi potestas est restituas." Compare xli. tit. ii. 6.

3 'Ait Praetor, "Quod precario ab illo habes, aut dolo malo fecisti ut desineres habere, qua de re agitur id illi restituas."' Dig. xliii. tit. xxvi. 2. Compare the rule of our law that continued enjoyment in order to give a title must be 'as of right,' 2 and 3 Will. IV, c. 71.

4 Compare the Institutes of Justinian, lib. ii. tit. vi. pr. 'Immobiles [res] . . . inter praesentes decennio, inter absentes viginti annis [usucapiuntur].'

5 The interruption must be of the right itself, not of the actual enjoy

dominorum, vel illis ignorantibus, et si scirent essent prohibituri, licet hoc fiat de consensu vel dissimulatione ballivorum, valere non debet. Si autem precaria fuerit et de gratia, quae tempestive revocari possit et intempestive, ex longo tempore non acquiritur jus, nec in casu proximo notato. Illud autem, quod de gratia est, ad voluntatem concedentis revocari poterit quocumque tempore, quod quidem non est in commodato. Potest etiam servitus ita constitui in proprio, ne liceat domino fundi pascere in suo proprio, et sic constituitur servitus in fundo alieno, aliquando ab homine, aliquando ex patientia et usu. Et eodem modo imponitur quandoque a jure et nec ab homine nec ab usu, scilicet, ne quis faciat in proprio per quod damnum vel nocumentum eveniat vicino 2. Nocumentum enim

poterit esse justum et poterit esse injuriosum. Injuriosum ubi quis fecerit aliquod in suo injuste contra legem vel contra constitutionem prohibitus a jure. Si autem prohiberi a jure non possit ne faciat, licet nocumentum faciat et damnosum, tamen non erit injuriosum, licitum est enim unicuique facere in suo quod damnum injuriosum non eveniet vicino, ut si quis in fundo proprio construat aliquod molendinum, et sectam suam et aliorum vicinorum subtrahat vicino, facit vicino damnum et non injuriam, cum a lege vel a constitutione prohibitum non sit ne molendinum habeat vel construat3.

Item

ment. Interruption of the right destroys the prescription or custom (see Blackstone, i. 77); interruption of the actual enjoyment or user, however long continued, operates only as some evidence that the right has been abandoned or released.

1 This is a correct description of 'negative' easements, where one person has, as owner of tenement A, the right to restrain the owner of tenement B from putting his land to uses which would, but for this special right, be legitimate. For example, A who has a house with an ancient window overlooking B's land, can prevent B from building on his land so as to obstruct the access of light and air to the window. Compare Dig. lib. viii. tit. i. 15: 'Servitutum non ea natura est, ut aliquid faciat quis; veluti viridaria tollat, aut amoeniorem prospectum praestet, aut in hoc ut in suo pingat; sed ut aliquid patiatur aut non faciat.'

2 This however is not properly a servitude at all, but part of the general rights attached to the possession of property. For the distinction between dominium and servitus see Austin, vol. ii. lect. xlviii.

3 Bracton here correctly draws the distinction between damnum-mere damage or harm,—and injuria—an illegal act causing damage. Obstructing a beautiful prospect which I have always enjoyed from the windows of

a jure imponitur servitus praedio vicinorum, scilicet ne quis stagnum suum altius tollat per quod tenementum vicini submergatur. Item ne faciat fossam in suo per quam aquam vicini divertat, vel per quod ad alveum suum pristinum reverti non possit in toto vel in parte. Item ne quid faciat in suo quo minus vicinus suus omnino uti possit servitute imposita vel concessa, vel quo minus commode utatur loco, tempore, numero vel genere, qualitate vel quantitate. Et non refert utrum hoc omnino fecerit vel quod tantundem valeat: ut si quis habuerit jus eundi per fundum alienum, non solum facit disseisinam si viam obstruat, sed si ire non permittat omnino commode vel ad usum debitum. Item si reficere viam non permittat, ad viam enim \/ pertinet refectio1. Item eodem modo si omnino aquam non divertat, sed fossam faciat vel purgare non permittat; quia ad aquae ductum pertinet purgatio, sicut ad viam pertinet refectio. Item licet omnino non impediat, si fecerit tamen quo minus commode, facit disseisinam, ut si communiam habeat in certo loco cum libero et competenti ingressu et egressu, faciat quis fossatum et hayam, murum vel pallacium, per quod oportet me ire per circuitum, ubi prius ingressus sum per compendium, salvo tamen vicino jure suo si recenter ad querelam ejus qui injuriam passus est quod suum fuerit exequatur. Si autem debitum

modum excedat quis, incontinenti repelli poterit, post tempus vero non nisi cum causae cognitione et sic, ut praedictum est, poterit quis habere servitutem in fundo alieno et uti, nisi prohibeatur ex justa causa. Jura siquidem quae quis in fundo alieno habere poterit, infinita sunt.

(2) Rights of Common.

Rights of common have always been the most important class of profits, and amongst rights of common stands prominent that

my house is, in the view of English law, a mere damnum; diminishing by obstruction the quantity of light and air which I receive through ancient windows is injuria. Sic utere tuo ut alienum non laedas' is said to be the maxim of our law. As Mr. Austin points out (ii. p. 829), if by ‘laedas' is meant mere damage, the maxim is untrue as a legal proposition; if it means 'injury,' it tells us nothing, as it affords no explanation of the distinction between damage and injury.

1A right of way carries with it the right of repairing the way.'

M

which Bracton here describes-common of pasture. Other rights of common are common of turbary, or of cutting turf for fuel to be burnt in a house; common of estovers, or of taking from another's land timber or underwood, heath, furze, fern, etc., to be used for fuel, litter, fodder for cattle, or similar purposes; common of piscary, or the right of fishing in another's water. Of these rights by far the most important is the right of common of pasture.

of

Though there is much that is obscure in the history of rights of common, indications are not wanting which tend to confirm the view stated in the first chapter of the growth of manors. It was probably in consequence of the change there noticed that the common or uncultivated land of the township was, in process time, regarded as the sole property of the lord of the manor and was called the lord's waste, and the old customary rights of the villagers came, as notions of strict legal rights of property were more exactly defined, to be regarded as rights of user on the lord's soil-as jura in re aliena1. Still the name remained, and attached, and as is seen remarkably in the following passages, to the waste or uncultivated land itself, which was still usually called common land, as if the commoners had rights of property in common over the soil itself, instead of having simply rights in alieno solo.

An important consequence too of the old customary law is found in the fact that every freeholder holding lands within the manor had, as of right, common of pasturage on the wastes as incident to his lands. To every new feoffment therefore these rights would attach, and this continued to be the law till the passing of the Statute of Quia Emptores, in the eighteenth year of Edward the First. By that Statute a mesne lord could no longer make a feoffment of lands to be held of himself in fee; the freeholder therefore whose title rested on a grant subsequent to that Statute was no longer a tenant of the manor, and could

1 Compare pp. 6, 7, 18, 19, 25, 45.

claim no rights over the wastes of the manor as incident to his feoffment. The technical name for this class of rights of pasturage incident to freehold lands held of a manor before 18 Edward I is 'common appendant.'

It seems from the following passage that often there were no exact limits as to the number of beasts which a commoner might put upon the waste land. Bracton however indicates that, at all events in the case of a new feoffment, the number must have some relation to the nature and size of the land, and to the prevailing customs. In later times the right of the freeholder holding lands of the lord of the manor came to be expressly defined1. He was entitled to have common of pasture for so many beasts useful in agriculture for tilling or manuring the soil, as his arable land would sustain during the winter. This is expressed technically as a right of common of pasture for all commonable cattle levant and couchant upon the lands. This class of rights of common of pasture enjoyed by the freeholders of the manor over the wastes of the manor as necessarily incident to their freeholds is the most ancient and in early times by far the most important class of rights of common 2.

If the view above given of the history of these rights of common be correct, it will be seen that the rights of the commoners and the rights of the lord must in very early times have come in conflict. Already in the time of Glanvill we find the law recognised and protected by a regular form of action the right of the commoner, by enabling him to bring an assize of novel disseisin against any one who disturbed him in the enjoyment of his right

1 It will be borne in mind that wherever at the present day a freeholder holds in fee of the lord of a manor that relation must have been created previous to the eighteenth year of Edward I. See Chapter IV. § 5.

2 See Mr. Joshua Williams' note on the case of Lord Dunraven v. Llewellyn (15 Queen's Bench Reports, 791; Elements of Real Property, p. 116, and ib. Appendix C), and see the judgment of Lord Hatherley in Warrick v. Queen's College, Oxford, Law Rep. 6 Ch. Appeals, p. 726.