delay, distrain all those from your bailiwick who have twenty pound lands or a whole knight's fee worth twenty pounds a year, from whomsoever they hold, and ought to be knights and are not, that they receive insignia of the same sort at the same feast or before so that you receive from the same good and sufficient security for it, and cause the names of all of them to be written down in a roll upon the attestation of two lawful knights of the aforesaid county, and to be transmitted to us, without delay, under your seal and the seals of the two knights. And we will you to know that we will make prompt visitation upon your action in the execution of this order of ours, and thereupon we shall cause suitable remedy to be made for it.

Witness the king at Westminster, the twenty-sixth day of June.

40.

Statute of Mortmain or De Religiosis

(November, 1279. Latin text, I S. R. 51, Stubbs, S. C. 458. Translation, 1 S. R. 51, G. and H. 81. 2 Stubbs, 117.)

HE king to his justices of the bench, Greeting.

men should

not enter into the fees of any without licence and will of the chief lords, of whom such fees be holden immediately; and notwithstanding such religious men have since entered as well into their own fees, as into the fees of other men, appropriating and buying them, and sometimes receiving them of the gift of others, whereby the services that are due of such fees, and which at the beginning were provided for defence of the realm, are wrongfully withdrawn, and the chief lords do lose their escheats of the same: we therefore, to the profit of our realm, intending to provide convenient remedy, by the advice of our prelates, earls, barons, and other our subjects, being of our council, have provided, established, and ordained, that no person, religious or other, whatsoever he be, presume to buy or sell, or under the color of gift or lease, or by reason of any other title, whatsoever it be, to receive of any man, or by any other craft or device to appropriate to himself any lands or tenements under pain of forfeiture of the same whereby such lands or tenements may any wise come into mortmain. We have provided also, that if any person, religious or other, do presume in any manner either by craft or device to offend against this statute, it shall be lawful to us and other chief lords of the fee

immediate to enter into the land so alienated, within a year from the time of the alienation, and to hold it in fee and inheritance. And if the chief lord immediate be negligent, and will not enter into such fee within the year, then it shall be lawful to the next chief lord immediate of the same fee to enter into the same fee within half a year next following, and to hold it as before is said; and so every lord immediate may enter into such fee if the next lord be negligent in entering into the same fee, as is aforesaid. And if all the chief lords of such fees, being of full age, within the four seas, and out of prison, be negligent or slack in this behalf, for the space of one year, we, immediately after the year accomplished, from the time that such purchases, gifts, or appropriations hap to be made, shall take such lands or tenements into our hand, and shall infeoff other thereby certain services to be done for the same to us for the defence of our realm; saving to the chief lords of the same fees their wards and escheats, and other things to them belonging, and the services for the same, due and accustomed. And therefore we command you, that you cause the aforesaid statute to be read before you, and from henceforth to be kept firmly and observed.

Witness myself at Westminster the fifteenth day of November, the seventh year of our reign.

41. The Statute of Merchants, or of Acton Burnell

(October, 1283. French text and translation, I S. R. 53. 2 Stubbs, 121.)

FORASMUCH as merchants, which heretofore have lent their

goods to divers persons, be greatly impoverished, because there is no speedy law provided for them to have recovery of their debts at the day of payment assigned; and by reason hereof many merchants do refrain to come into this realm with their merchandises, to the damage as well of the merchants, as of the whole realm; the king by himself and his council hath ordained and established, that the merchant which will be sure of his debt, shall cause his debtor to come before the mayor of London, or of York, or Bristol, and before the mayor and a clerk, which the king shall appoint for the same, for to acknowledge the debt and the day of payment; and the recognizance shall be entered into a roll with the hand of the said clerk, which shall be known. Moreover, the

said clerk shall make with his own hand a bill obligatory, whereunto the seal of the debtor shall be put, with the king's seal, that shall be provided for the same purpose, the which seal shall remain in the keeping of the mayor and clerk aforesaid: and if the debtor doth not pay at the day to him limited, the creditor may come before the said mayor and clerk with his bill obligatory; and if it be found by the roll, and by the bill, that the debt was acknowledged, and that the day of payment is expired, the mayor shall incontinent cause the movables of the debtor to be sold, as far as the debt doth amount, by the appraising of honest men, as also chattels, and burgages devisable, until the whole sum of the debt; and the money, without delay, shall be paid to the creditor. And if the mayor can find no buyer, he shall cause the movables to be delivered to the creditor at a reasonable price, as much as doth amount to the sum of the debt, in allowance of his debt and the king's seal shall be put unto the sale and deliverance of the burgages devisable for a perpetual witness. And if the debtor have no movables within the jurisdiction of the mayor, whereupon the debt may be levied, but hath some otherwhere within the realm, then shall the mayor send the recognizance, made before him and the clerk aforesaid, unto the chancellor, under the seal aforesaid; and the chancellor shall direct a writ unto the sheriff, in whose bailiwick the movables of the debtor be, and the sheriff shall cause the creditor to be satisfied in such form as it is prescribed that the mayor should have done in case that the movables of the debtor had been within his power; and let them that shall appraise the movable goods, to be delivered unto the creditor, take good heed that they do set a just and reasonable price upon them; for if they do set an over high price for favor borne to the debtor, and to the damage of the creditor, then shall the thing so appraised be delivered unto themselves at such price as they have limited, and they shall be forthwith answerable unto the creditor for his debt. And if the debtor will say, that his movable goods were delivered or sold for less than they were worth, yet shall he have no remedy thereby; forasmuch as the mayor or the sheriff hath sold the movable goods lawfully to him that offered most; for he may blame himself, that before the day of the suit he had it in his power to have sold his movable goods, and to have levied the money with his own hand, and yet he would not. And if the debtor have no movables whereupon the debt may be levied, then shall his body be taken where it may be found, and kept in prison until that he have made agreement, or his friends for him; and if he have not of his own wherewith he may sustain himself in prison,

the creditor shall find him bread and water, to the end that he die not in prison for default of sustenance, the which costs the debtor shall recompense him with his debt, before that he be let out of prison. And if the creditor be a merchant stranger, he shall remain at the costs of the debtor for so long time as he shall be suing for the levying of his debt, until the day that the movable goods of the debtor be sold or delivered unto him. And if the creditor do not content himself with the debtor alone for the surety of his payment, by reason whereof pledges or mainpernors be founden, then those pledges or mainpernors shall come before the mayor and clerk abovesaid, and shall bind themselves by writings and recognizances, as afore is said of the debtor. And in like manner if the debt be not paid at the day limited, such execution shall be awarded against the pledges or mainpernors, as before is said of the debtor; provided nevertheless, that so long as the debt may be fully taken and levied of the goods movable of the debtor, the mainpernors or pledges shall be without damage: notwithstanding, for default of movable goods of the debtor, the creditor shall have his recovery against the mainpernors or pledges, in such manner and form as before is limited against the principal debtor.

And to defray the charge of the aforesaid clerk, the king shall take out of every pound one penny. This ordinance and act the king willeth to be holden from henceforth throughout all his realm of England, among all persons whosoever they may be, who shall freely choose to make such recognizance; except Jews, to whom this statute extendeth not.

And by this statute a writ of debt shall not be abated. And the chancellor, barons of the exchequer, justices of the one bench and of the other, and justices errants, shall not be estopped to take recognizances of debts of those who shall choose so to do before them; but the execution of recognizances before them shall not be made according to the form aforesaid, but according to law, usage, and manner heretofore used.

Given at Acton Burnell, the twelfth day of October in the eleventh year of our reign.

42. The Statutes of Westminster; the Second

(June, 1285. Latin text and translation, 1 S. R. 71. 2 Stubbs, 122. Clause I., here given, is known as De donis conditionalibus.)

UR lord the king in his parliament, after the feast of Easter, holden the thirteenth year of his reign at Westminster, * did provide certain acts, as shall appear here following.

First, Concerning lands that many times are given upon condition, that is to wit, where any giveth his land to any man and his wife, and to the heirs begotten of the bodies of the same man and his wife, with such condition expressed that if the same man and his wife die without heir of their bodies between them begotten, the land so given shall revert to the giver or his heir: In case also where one giveth lands in free marriage, which gift hath a condition annexed, though it be not expressed in the deed of gift, which is this, that if the husband and wife die without heir of their bodies begotten, the land so given shall revert to the giver or his heir in case also where one giveth land to another, and the heirs of his body issuing; it seemed very hard, and yet seemeth to the givers and their heirs, that their will being expressed in the gift, was not heretofore, nor yet is observed: for in all the cases aforesaid, after issue begotten and born between them, to whom the lands were given under such condition, heretofore such feoffees had power to aliene the land so given, and to disherit their issue of the land, contrary to the minds of the givers, and contrary to the form expressed in the gift: and further, when the issue of such feoffee is failing, the land so given ought to return to the giver, or his heir, by form of the gift expressed in the deed though the issue, if any were, had died: yet by the deed and feoffment of them, to whom land was so given upon condition, the donors have heretofore been barred of their reversion, which was directly repugnant to the form of the gift: wherefore our lord the king, perceiving how necessary and expedient it should be to provide remedy in the aforesaid cases, hath ordained, that the will of the giver, according to the form in the deed of gift manifestly expressed, shall be from henceforth observed; so that they to whom the land was given under such condition, shall have no power to aliene the land so given, but that it shall remain unto the issue of them to whom it was given after their death, or unto the giver or his heirs, if issue fail either by reason that there