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The Concept of Property in the Early Common Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 October 2011

David J. Seipp
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Extract

“There is nothing,” wrote William Blackstone, “which so generally strikes the imagination and engages the affections of mankind, as the right of property.” Property continues to occupy a place of enormous importance in American legal thought. More than just a staple of the first-year law school curriculum, the concept of property guides the application of constitutional doctrines of due process and eminent domain. A grand division between “property rules” and “liability rules” classifies our common law entitlements. Property is a concept of such longstanding importance in our law, of such great inertial momentum, that it has expanded to include nonphysical property in goodwill, inventions, designs, artistic expression, symbols, secrets, privacy, and celebrity, as well as “new” property in social security benefits, government contracts, job security, and occupational licenses. Recent scholars have identified property with autonomy, personality, political participation, and reliance interests. Thus expanded, the concept of property threatens to disintegrate. If it includes everything, does it mean anything?

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Articles
Information
Law and History Review , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , Spring 1994 , pp. 29 - 91
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Copyright © the American Society for Legal History, Inc. 1994

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References

1. 2 Blackstone, William, Commentaries on the Laws of England 2 (Oxford 1766).Google Scholar For Blackstone, this right of property was “that sole and despotic dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in total exclusion of the right of any other individual in the universe.” Id.

Throughout this article, spelling, punctuation, and capitalization of quotations have been modernized. Dates are calculated by “historical year” commencing January 1.

2. See, e.g., Ackerman, Bruce A., Private Property and the Constitution (1977)Google Scholar; Epstein, Richard, Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain (1985)Google Scholar; Nedelsky, Jennifer, Private Property and the Limits of American Constitutionalism 1–3 (1990)Google Scholar; Underkuffler, Laura S., On Property: An Essay, 100 Yale L.J. 127, 128–33 (1990).Google Scholar

3. See Calabresi, Guido & Melamed, A. Douglas, Property Rules, Liability Rules, and Inalienability: One View of the Cathedral, 85 Harv. L. Rev. 1089, 1105–10 (1972).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4. See, e.g., Reich, Charles, The New Property, 73 Yale L.J. 733, 778–87 (1964)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Vandevelde, Kenneth J., The New Property of the Nineteenth Century: The Development of the Modern Concept of Property, 29 Buff. L. Rev. 325, 334–54, 358–59 (1980).Google Scholar

5. See, e.g., Powell, Richard, The Relationship Between Property Rights and Civil Rights, 15 Hastings L.J. 135 (1963)Google Scholar; Michelman, Frank, Property as a Constitutional Right, 38 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 1097, 1109–14 (1981)Google Scholar; Radin, Margaret Jane, Property and Personhood, 34 Stan. L. Rev. 957 (1982)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Singer, Joseph William, The Reliance Interest in Property, 40 Stan. L. Rev. 614, 652–701 (1988)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Underkuffler, supra note 2, at 142–47.

6. E.g., Cohen, Felix S., Dialogue on Private Property, 9 Rutgers L. Rev. 357, 359–82 (1954)Google Scholar; Grey, Thomas G., The Disintegration of Property, in Property: Nomos XXII 69, 74–78 (Pennock, Roland & Chapman, John eds., 1980)Google Scholar; Van Doren, John W., Private Property: A Study in Incoherence, 63 U. Det. L. Rev. 683, 684–86, 700–701 (1986).Google ScholarSee Nedelsky, supra note 2, at 223; Vandevelde, supra note 4, at 362–63.

7. 2 Blackstone, supra note 1, at 2.

8. See, e.g., Epstein, supra note 2, at 9–16; Rose, Carol M., Possession as the Origin of Property, 52 U. Chi. L. Rev. 73, 73–74 (1985)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Epstein, Richard, Possession as the Root of Title, 13 Ga. L. Rev. 1221, 1227–30 (1979).Google Scholar A welcome exception is Donahue, Charles Jr., The Future of the Concept of Property Predicted from Its Past, in Property: Nomos XXII, supra note 6, at 35–40.Google Scholar

9. See, e.g., Plucknett, Theodore F.T., A Concise History of the Common Law 504–623 (5th ed., 1956) (“Part III. Real Property”)Google Scholar; Milsom, S.F.C., Historical Foundations of the Common Law 99–239 (2d ed., 1981) (“Part II. Property in Land”).Google Scholar

10. See any modern American casebook or treatise on “property law.”

11. Meant as a working hypothesis, this proposition has attracted more objections from readers of prior drafts than I had expected. I do not say that all concepts need words or that you can't think about something if you don't have a unitary label to attach to it. My point is about communicating a concept to others sharing the same language. For that, I am supposing, a word or phrase is necessary. Lack of any word or phrase suggests that no unitary concept is being communicated.

12. J. Inst. 1.1.pr; Dig. 1.1.10.pr (Ulpian, Regularum 1).

13. See infra, text accompanying note 211. The standard gloss of Accursius on Justinian's Digest (c. 1250) reasoned that divine law enjoined “thou shalt not steal” but that human law (ius gentium) instituted individual property. 2 Carlyle, R.W. & Carlyle, A.T., A History of Mediaeval Political Thought in the West 48 & n.2 (1970).Google Scholar

14. John Locke and a few other seventeenth-century political writers combined attributes commonly said to be “mine” (self, life, limbs, liberty, labor) with things commonly said to be “my property” (land, goods, animals). Hobbes, Thomas, Leviathan 382–83 (1968) (pt. 2, ch. 30, p. 179 in 1651 ed.)Google Scholar; Locke, John, Two Treatises of Government 287–88, 350, 383 (Laslett, Peter ed., 1960)Google Scholar; Overton, Richard, An Arrow Against All Tyrants 3–4 (London 1646)Google Scholar, reprinted in Aylmer, G.E., The Levellers in the English Revolution 68, 68–69 (1975).Google Scholar They may also have been combining the two senses of “property” as ownership and “property” as attribute. See also infra, text accompanying notes 267–68.

15. On the derivation of our word “property,” see Donahue, supra note 8, at 31–32.

16. See infra, text accompanying notes 21–31.

17. See Watson, Alan, The Making of the Civil Law 27 (1981).Google Scholar

18. See infra, text accompanying notes 33, 149–56.

19. See infra, text accompanying note 116.

20. Glanvill, de Legibus et Consuetudinibus Regni Anglie (Woodbine, George E. ed., 1932)Google Scholar; The Treatise on the Laws and Customs of the Realm of England Commonly Called Glanvill (Hall, G.D.G. ed. & trans., 1965).Google Scholar Subsequent citations are to the Hall edition.

21. Glanvill, supra note 20, at bk. 1, ch. 3, classified civil pleas for land in the king's court as claims on the property (super proprietate) and claims on the possession (super possessione).

22. E.g., Glanvill, supra note 20, at 6 (bk. 1, ch. 7, fol. 2v) (recto); id. at 132 (bk. 11, ch. 1, fol. 41) (recto); id. at 157 (bk. 13, ch. 13, fol. 48); id. at 158 (bk. 13, ch. 15, fol. 48v); notes in Woodbine ed. at 262, 281–83. On some problems with the classification, see Barton, J.L., Roman Law in England 9 & n.20 (Ius Romanum Medii Aevi, vol. 5, pt. 13a, 1971).Google Scholar

23. Glanvill, supra note 20, at 6 (bk. 1, ch. 7, fol. 2v) (de recto); id. at 43 (bk. 4, ch. 1, fol. 13v) (iure); id. at 136 (bk. 12, ch. 1, fol. 42v); id. at 148 (bk. 13, ch. 1, fol. 45v). The word “seisin” was itself new in the last third of the twelfth century; earlier documents used the verb forms “to seise” and “to be seised.” id. at 192.

24. Glanvill, supra note 20, at 4 (bk. 1, ch. 3, fol. 2); id. at 3 (bk. 1, ch. 2, fol. 1v); id. at 25 (bk. 2, ch. 3, fol. 8). See Barton, J.L., Bracton as a Civilian, 42 Tul. L. Rev. 555, 566 n.51 (1968).Google Scholar

25. 2 de Bracton, Henry, On the Laws and Customs of England 294 (fol. 103) (Woodbine, G.E. ed., Thorne, S.E. trans., 1968–77).Google Scholar

26. Compare J. Inst. 1.2.12 with 2 Bracton, supra note 25, at 29 (fol. 4b).

27. Cf. 2 Bracton, supra note 25, at 318 (fol. 112b).

28. Id. at 290–95 (fols. 101b–103).

29. Id. at 294, 296–97 (fols. 103, 104). See also 3 id. at 13 (fols. 159b–160). On the classification of individual writs, see, e.g., 2 id. at 320–21 (fols. 113–113b); 3 id. at 18, 291, 325–26 (fols. 161, 270b, 283b–284); 4 id. at 21, 47 (fols. 317b, 327b).

30. 1 id. at 115–16; 2 id. at 24–25 (fol. 3); 4 id. at 350–51 (fols. 434b–435). In other passages, Bracton equated possessory and proprietary right with the interests of the life tenant and reversioner. 2 id. at 106 (fol. 32b); 3 id. at 13 (fol. 160). On the conceptual separation between property and possession, see, e.g., 2 id. at 321 (fol. 113); see D. 41.2.12.1; William of Drogheda, Summa Aurea 357 (L. Wahrmund ed., 1914); Bracton and Azo 208–9 (Seiden Society Vol. 8). See also 3 Bracton, supra note 25, at 325 (fol. 284) (paraphrase); id. at 283 (fol. 267).

31. Britton bk. 2, ch. 3, fols. 87, 89b (Francis Morgan Nichols ed. & trans., Oxford 1865); id. at bk. 2, ch. 8, fol. 101; id. at bk. 2, eh. l'1, fol. 106b; id. at bk. 2, ch. 16, fol. 121b; id. at bk. 4, ch. 13, fol. 204; id. at bk. 3, ch. 22, fol. 217; id. at bk. 3, ch. 26, fol. 221b; id. at bk. 4, ch. 3, fol. 226; id. at bk. 4, ch. 6, fol. 233b; id. at bk. 4, ch. 8, fols. 235b–236; id. at bk. 6, intro., fol. 268 (1:221, 227, 257, 271–72, 311; 2:120, 153–54, 166–67, 178, 203, 209–10, 309). See also the problematic Mirror of Justices 57, 65, 67 (Seiden Society Vol. 7) (chs. 16, 24, 25, droit de propriete).

32. 2 Bracton, supra note 25, at 40–47, 127–29, 156, 158–59, 181, 184 (fols. 8–10b, 40b–41b, 51b, 52b, 61b, 62b).

33. For a few apparent exceptions in printed editions, not found in the original Year Book manuscripts, see infra text accompanying notes 149–50.

34. See Seipp, David J., Bracton, the Year Books, and the “Transformation of Elementary Legal Ideas” in the Early Common Law, 7 Law & Hist. Rev. 175, 183–95, 200–201 (1989).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

35. For evidence of the common lawyers' acquaintance with the Bracton treatise through 1300, see Brand, Paul, The Origins of the English Legal Profession 112–13 (1992)Google Scholar; Brand, Paul, Courtroom and Schoolroom: The Education of Lawyers in England Prior to 1400, 60 Hist. Res. 147, 163 (1987).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

36. Turner, Ralph V., The English Judiciary in the Age of Glanvill and Bracton, c. 1176–1239, at 150–51 (1985).Google Scholar

37. See Seipp, supra note 34, at 190–91.

38. The scheme was fully worked out in Thomas Littleton, Tenures (1st publ. 1481).

39. See, e.g., Mich. 18 Edw. 3, pl. 48, in Rolls Series at 157, 165 (1344) (there is no land which is not held of another person until one comes to the King); Pasch. 20 Edw. 3, pl. 50, R.S. 1:339, 343 (1346); Jugement pl. 232 (1346) in Fitzherbert, Anthony, La Graunde Abridgment (London 1514–16) (there was no land in England to which the King had not in some way a right).Google Scholar

40. Cowell, John, Institutiones Juris Anglicani 2.2.2 (Cambridge 1605)Google Scholar (dominium); Cowell, John, The Interpreter, s.v. Property (Cambridge 1607).Google Scholar Despite his disclaimers, Cowell himself wrote of proprietate infeodo simplici to denote fee simple estates in land at English law, e.g., Institutiones, supra, at 236 (4.17.2). Reconciling “absolute” property and feudal landholding remained a problem for Blackstone. Burns, Robert P., Blackstone's Theory of the “Absolute” Rights of Property, 54 U. Cin. L. Rev. 67, 79–82 (1985).Google Scholar

41. Aylmer, G.E., The Meaning and Definition of ‘Property’ in Seventeenth-Century England, 86 Past & Present 87, 97 (1980).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

42. Also in Normandy on the eve of the Conquest, when charters referred to dominium and proprietas in laypersons' land, the terms applied to feudal holdings. Tabuteau, Emily Zack, Transfers of Property in Eleventh-Century Norman Law 95–99, 107–9 (1988).Google Scholar

43. Gierke, Otto, Political Theories of the Middle Ages 79, 178 n.271 (Maitland, Frederic William trans., 1900)Google Scholar; 5 Carlyle & Carlyle, supra note 13, at 102; Coleman, Janet, Property and Poverty, in The Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought 607, 614 (Burns, J.H. ed., 1988)Google Scholar; Cairns, John W., Craig, Cujas, and the Definition of Feudum: Is a Feu a Usufruct?, in New Perspectives on the Roman Law of Property 75–84 (Birks, Peter ed., 1989)Google Scholar; Philbrick, Francis S., Changing Conceptions of Property in Law, 86 U. Pa. L. Rev. 691, 700–703 & n.31, 706 (1938).Google Scholar Later English lawyers employed the distinction, in, e.g., 2 Blackstone, supra note 1, at 105; 2 Chambers, Robert, A Course of Lectures on the English Law 85, 158 (Curley, Thomas M. ed., 1986).Google Scholar

44. Richard Fitzralph, De Pauperie Salvatoris, bk. 1, ch. 2; bk. 4, chs. 1–2, in Wycliffe, John, De Dominio Divino 279–81, 435–40, Wyclif Society no. 10 (Poole, Reginald Lane ed., London 1890)Google Scholar (c. 1350) (excerpts translated in 1 Ewart Lewis, Medieval Political Ideas 121–24 [1954]).

45. See Gierke, supra note 43, at 179 n.271; Gough, J.W., John Locke's Political Philosophy 74 n.4 (1950).Google Scholar

46. See, e.g., Mich. 7 Edw. 4, pl. 16, fol. 18 (1467) (heriot custom entitled the lord to take the villein's best beast at his death, even if the villein had sold it while alive). Citations in this form are to the “Maynard” or “Vulgate” edition of 1679–80.

47. Bacon, Francis, The Learned Reading… Upon the Statute of Uses (delivered 1600, first publ. London 1642)Google Scholar, in 14 The Works of Francis Bacon 283, 319 (Spedding, James et al. eds., Boston 1861).Google Scholar

48. Statute of Tenures, 12 Car. 2, ch. 24 (1660); Buck, A.R., The Politics of Land Law in Tudor England, 1529–1540, 11 J. Leg. Hist. 200, 201 (1990).Google Scholar

49. Simpson, A.W.B., A History of the Land Law 62, 139 (2d ed., 1986).CrossRefGoogle ScholarSee infra text accompanying note 282. In the Anglo-Saxon period, it was possible to pass land by will, but this was a late development and a rare practice, probably introduced by the Church. Sheehan, Michael M., The Will in Medieval England 83–99 (1963).Google Scholar

50. For both categories of holdings, however, individuals could sometimes place restrictions on the terms of gifts in order to limit future alienation by the recipients.

51. See Dyer, Christopher, Lords and Peasants in a Changing Society 51, 110–11 (1980)Google Scholar; Macfarlane, Alan, The Origins of English Individualism 124–30 (1978)Google Scholar; Tawney, R.H., The Agrarian Problem in the Sixteenth Century 59–61, 78–80, 90–93 (1912).Google Scholar

52. Quia Emptores Terrarum, 18 Edw. 1 (1290); see Simpson, Supra note 49, at 54–55.

53. R. Howard Bloch suggests that in late medieval France the link went entirely in the opposite direction. Property (proprietas, propre) was equated with patrimony and land, while goods, allied with money, did not connote property. Bloch, R. Howard, Etymologies and Genealogies: A Literary Anthropology of the French Middle Ages 73–74, 171–73 (1983).Google Scholar

54. Statute of Wills, 32 Hen. 8, ch. I (1540).

55. Helmholz, R.H., Roman Canon Law in Reformation England 1, 81–82 (1990).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

56. See, e.g., J. Inst. 2.6.pr; 2 Bracton, supra note 25, at 39 (fol. 7b); Hil. 9 Hen. 6, pl. 16, fol. 63 (1432); see infra text accompanying note 173.

57. See infra text accompanying notes 75–82.

58. Thus Maitland concluded that “the ownership of land was a much more intense and completely protected right than was the ownership of a chattel.” 2 Pollock, Frederick & Maitland, Frederick William, The History of English Law Before the Time of Edward I 153 (2d ed., Cambridge 1898).Google Scholar

59. See infra text accompanying notes 92–104.

60. This is a theme throughout Bellamy, J.G., Bastard Feudalism and the Law (1989).Google Scholar

61. Lords frequently converted service obligations to fixed money rents. Dyer, supra note 51, at 98–100.

62. Before the sixteenth century, the advantage of landholding lay not in the ability to exclude everyone, but in the ability to raise a force of fighting men from among the tenants sharing occupation of one's land. Tawney, supra note 51, at 188–90. Greater prestige lay in lavish, conspicuous expenditures than in hoarding one's wealth. Gurevich, A., Representations of Property During the High Middle Ages, 6 Econ. & Soc'y 1, 16–17, 21–22 (1977).Google Scholar

63. See, e.g., Macfarlane, supra note 51, at 57–59. For earlier continental parallels, see Grossi, Paulo, La proprietà nel sistema privatistico della seconda scolastica, in La Seconda Scolastica Nella Formazione del Diritto Privato Moderno 117 (Grossi, Paolo ed., 1973).Google Scholar It has been thought that early Roman society saw a similar transformation. Sohm, Rudolph, The Institutes: A Textbook of the History and System of Roman Private Law 35–37 (Ledlie, James Crawford trans., 3d ed., 1940).Google Scholar

64. See infra text accompanying notes 104, 105, 115–18.

65. See, e.g., Maitland, F.W., The Seisin of Chattels, 1 Law Q. Rev. 324 (1885)Google Scholar; Ames, James Barr, The Disseisin of Chattels, 3 Harv. L. Rev. 23, 313, 337 (1890)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bordwell, Percy, Property in Chattels, 20 Harv. L. Rev. 374, 501, 731 (1916)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Finkelstein, Maurice, The Plea of Property in a Stranger in Replevin, 23 Colum. L. Rev. 652 (1923)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hazeltine, H.D., Gossip About Legal History: Unpublished Letters of Maitland and Ames, 2 Cambridge L.J. 1, 10–17 (1924)Google Scholar; Milsom, S.F.C., Sale of Goods in the Fifteenth Century, 77 Law Q. Rev. 257 (1961)Google Scholar; Baker, J.H., Introduction, in 2 The Reports of Sir John Spelman 209–20 (Seiden Society Vol. 94, 1977).Google Scholar

66. The Year Books are a better source for studying conventional legal usage than for pinning down authoritative legal doctrine. Reporters recorded successful and unsuccessful pleading strategies, but often omitted the results of the cases. See Seipp, David J., Roman Legal Categories in the Early Common Law, in Legal Record and Historical Reality 9, 17 (Watkin, Thomas G. ed., 1989).Google Scholar For a study of late twentieth-century “property” discourse in American state supreme court decisions, see Donahue, supra note 8, at 48–55.

67. Pasch. 6 Edw. 2, pl. 16, 43 Seiden Society 114 (1313) (Russell); Kent Eyre, 6–7 Edw. 2, 27 Seiden Society 28 (1313–14) (Ingham); Mich. 17 Edw. 3, pl. 78, R.S. 357 (1343); Pasch. 1 Hen. 7, pl. 2, fol. 14, 15 (1486); Mich. 20 Hen. 7, pl. 1, fol. 1 (1504); Woodward v. Darcy, 1 Plowden 184, 185, 75 Eng. Rep. 285 (1558). But see Pasch. 7 Hen. 4, pl. 3, fol. 39 (1406) (no property in unpaid debt obligation); Mich. 21 Hen. 7, pl. 2, Keilway 69, 72 Eng. Rep. 229 (1506) (no property in undesignated barley). On fires, Pasch. 2 Hen. 4, pl. 6, fol. 18 (1401). But see Paramour v. Yardley, 2 Plowden 542, 75 Eng. Rep. 799 (1579). See infra text accompanying notes 139–44.

68. 2 Edw. 2, pl. 50, 17 Seiden Society 105 (1308–09); 4 Edw. 2, pl. 3, 42 Seiden Society 173 (1310–11); Pasch. 17 Edw. 2, fol. 543 (1324); Trin. 14 Edw. 3, pl. 37, R.S. 277, 279 (1340); Hil. 15 Edw. 3, pl. 26, R.S. 313 (1341); Pasch. 12 Edw. 4, pl. 25, fol. 10 (1472); Pasch. 10 Edw. 4, pl. 1, fol. 1 (1470); Hales v. Petit, 1 Plowden 253, 259, 75 Eng. Rep. 396 (1562).

69. Hil. 18 Edw. 3, pl. 47, RS 629 (1344); Hil. 19 Edw. 3, pl. 23, R.S. 465, 467 (1345); Mich. 11 Hen. 4, pl. 59, fol. 32 (1409); Mich. 6 Edw. 4, pl. 18, fol. 7 (1466); Trin. 7 Edw. 4, pl. 5, fol. 13, 14 (1467); Hil. 18 Edw. 4, pl. 1, fol. 21, 1 (1479); Trin. 21 Hen. 7, pl. 5, fols. 27, 28 (1506); 1 The Reports of Sir John Spelman, supra note 65, at 3 (Acción sur le Case pl. 3) (1522).

70. Thomas v. Sorrell, Vaughan 330, 337, 124 Eng. Rep. 1098, 1102 (1673). See supra note 14 and infra text accompanying notes 267–68. See also, e.g., C.B. Macpherson, Property: Critical and Mainstream Positions 7 (1978). Cf. Richard Tuck, Natural Rights Theories: Their Origin and Development 3, 16 (1979) (suggesting this was a pervasive notion before the seventeenth century). Although proprete did not refer to one's person, the related term propre, meaning one's “own,” appeared most frequently in the Year Books in two contexts: appearing “personally” in court (en propre person) and holding goods for one's own use (come propre biens). We retain this sense of one's “proper” identity in our distinction between proper nouns and common nouns.

71. See, e.g., Barham v. Dennis, Cro. Eliz. 770, 78 Eng. Rep. 1001 (C.P. 1601); Thomas v. Sorrell, Vaughan 330, 339, 124 Eng. Rep. 1098, 1103 (1673). See infra text accompanying notes 264–65.

72. Mich. 8 Hen. 4, Retourne pl. 31, in [Nicholas Statham], Epitome Annalium Librorum Tempore Henrici Sexti fol. 157b (1406) (1st pubi. London, c. 1490). In 1346, in a replevin action for return of distrained animals, the defendant claimed himself to be a monk and the plaintiff to be the abbot's villein. The plaintiff responded that a monk could not have proprete de villein. Mich. 20 Edw. 3, pl. 32, 2 R.S. 305 (1346). This may have meant either “property in a villein” or “property in a villein's goods.” Other cases describe lords “seised” of their villeins. Mich. 3 Edw. 3, pl. 14, fol. 38 (1329).

73. Arguments in the Inner Temple, MS. Harley 1691, Case 22 (fol. 26v), 105 Seiden Society 136 (propertye en lour corps); Case 33 (fol. 32), 105 Seiden Society 147 (propertye de corps). Cf. Case 28, 105 Seiden Society 141 (lord's loyall interest en le corps of villein).

74. Bracton did not consider villeins the “chattels” of their lords, or as “slaves” in relation to anyone else but their lords. Bracton preferred to write that villeins were in the power (potestas) of their lords. See Hyams, Paul R., King, Lords and Peasants in Medieval England: The Common Law of Villeinage in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries 90–96 (1980).Google Scholar Earlier sources indicate that villeins could be bought and sold like domestic animals. See id. at 3–5. See also 2 Chambers, supra note 43, at 106.

75. The common Year Book usage is proprete a someone. I have rendered the law French phraseology in this form: “the property in the goods was to or with a certain person.”

76. Macpherson, supra note 70, at 3.

77. See, e.g., Trin. 18 Edw. 3, pl. 4, R.S. 231 (1344) (heriot); Trin. 12 Rie. 2, pl. 2, Ames 3, 4; Statham, supra note 72, Distresse pl. 3 (1388) (attaint); Mich. 13 Rie. 2, pl. 3, Ames 35; pl. 4, Ames 37 (1389) (mortuary); Mich. 13 Hen. 4, pl. 5, fol. 2 (1411) (execution); Mich. 7 Edw. 4, pl. 16, fol. 18 (1467) (heriot); Trin. 20 Hen. 7, pl. 2, Keilway 61, 63, 72 Eng. Rep. 223 (1505) (forfeiture); Woodland v. Mantel, 1 Plowden 94, 95, 75 Eng. Rep. 152 (1553) (heriot). Cf. Fair Court of St. Ives, 23 Seiden Society 83 (1311) (attachment).

78. Mich. 47 Edw. 3, pl. 55, fol. 23 (1373); Mich. 48 Edw. 3, pl. 8, fol. 20 (1374); Hil. 14 Hen. 4, pl. 37, fol. 27 (1413); Pasch. 7 Hen. 6, pl. 24, fol. 31 (1429); Mich. 2 Edw. 4, pl. 26, fol. 25 (1465); Hil. 18 Edw. 4, pl. 5, fol. 23 (1479); Mich. 22 Edw. 4, pl. 10, fol. 29, 30 (1482).

79. E.g., Trin. 2 Hen. 5, pl. 9, fol. 10 (1414); see infra text accompanying notes 110–17.

80. Trin. 21 Hen. 6, pl. 12, fol. 55 (1443); Mich. 22 Hen. 6, pl. 50, fol. 33 (1443); Hil. 49 Hen. 6, pl. 4, 47 Seiden Society 163 (1471); Pasch. 17 Edw. 4, pl. 2, fol. 1 (1477); Hil. 18 Edw. 4, pl. 1, fols. 21, 1 (1479); Hil. 21 Hen. 7, pl. 4, fol. 6 (1506); Hil. 21 Hen. 7, pl. 30, fol. 18 (1506); Port's Notebook, 102 Seiden Society 109 (1523).

81. Mich. 1 Edw. 4, pl. 18, fol. 9 (1461) (Yelverton).

82. Estray (property passed to the taker after a year and a day): Hil. 31 Edw. 3, Statham, supra note 72, Estray pl. 1, fol. 79a (1357); Hil. 39 Edw. 3, pl. [14], fol. 4 (1365); Pasch. 7 Hen. 6, pl. 21, fol. 27, 28 (1429); Mich. 20 Hen. 7, pl. 1, fol. 1 (1504). Damage feasant: 27 Lib. Ass. pl. 64, fol. 143 (1353); Pasch. 12 Edw. 4, pl. 25, fol. 10 (1472); Mich. 7 Hen. 7, pl. 1, fol. 16 (1491); Mich. 13 Hen. 7, pl. 11, fol. 10 (1497).

83. Pasch. 3 Edw. 2, pl. 4b, 20 Seiden Society 67 (1310) (Stanton); Mich. 4 Edw. 2, pl. 44, 22 Seiden Society 150 (1310); Kent Eyre, 6–7 Edw. 2, 27 Seiden Society 28 (1313–14) (Ingham); Mich. 12 Edw. 2, pl. 31, 65 Seiden Society 42 (1318); Mich. 12 Edw. 2, pl. 39, 65 Seiden Society 56 (1318); Pasch. 17 Edw. 2, fol. 543 (1324); Trin. 14 Edw. 3, pl. 37, R.S. 277, 279 (1340); Hil. 15 Edw. 3, pl. 26, R.S. 313 (1341); Trin. 16 Edw. 3, pl. 72, R.S. 245 (1342); Trin. 33 Edw. 3, Statham, supra note 72, Replegiare pl. 4, fol. 161a (1359); Pasch. 21 Edw. 4, pl. 7, fol. 4 (1481) (Littleton); Old Natura Brevium at fol. 34 (late 14th c. MS, first publ. London c. 1518); Robert Constable, Reading at Lincoln's Inn, 71 Seiden Society 229 (1489); Moot Case from Barnard's Inn, c. 1480–1500, 105 Seiden Society clxxiii, clxxxix. Cf. Mich. 2 Hen. 4, pl. 51, fol. 12 (1400) (wife gave property in goods to chaplain as against husband); Mich. 22 Hen. 6, Statham, supra note 72, Corone pl. 39, fol. 57a (1443); Mich. 33 Hen. 6, pl. 4, fol. 31 (1454).

84. Mich. 30 Edw. 1, R.S. 31 (1302) (Friskeney); Mich. 5 Edw. 2, pl. 48, 63 Seiden Society 240(1311)(Herle); Pasch. 6 Edw. 2, pl. 16, 43 Seiden Society 114(1313)(Russell); Trin. 12 Hen. 7, pl. 2, fol. 22–24 (1497).

85. See, e.g., 2 Edw. 2, pl. 62, 17 Seiden Society 128 (1308–09) (Hengham).

86. 21 Edw. I, R.S. 107 (1293); Hil. 19 Edw. 3, pl. 32, R.S. 501 (1345); Mich. 19 Edw. 3, pl. 79, R.S. 473, 477 (1345); Trin. 33 Edw. 3, Statham, supra note 72, Replegiare pl. 4, fol. 161a (1359); Pasch. 35 Edw. 3, id. at Villenage pl. 8, fol. 187a (1361); Mich. 18 Hen. 6, pl. 7, fol. 22 (1439).

87. Some exceptions are Mich. 7 Hen. 6, pl. 6, fols. 1, 2 (1428); Hil. 21 Hen. 6, pl. 16, fol. 30 (1443).

88. See Staves, Susan, Married Women's Separate Property in England, 1660–1833, at 29, 35 (1990).Google Scholar

89. See Sheehan, M.M., The Influence of Canon Law on the Property Rights of Married Women in England, 25 Medieval Stud. 109, 121–22 (1963)Google Scholar; Kettle, Ann J., ‘My Wife Shall Have It’: Marriage and Property in the Wills and Testaments of Later Medieval England, in Marriage and Property 89, 94–96 (Craik, Elizabeth M. ed., 1984).Google Scholar

90. Lyndwood, William, Provinciale Seu Constitutiones Angliae 173 (Oxford 1679)Google Scholar (gloss on propriarum uxorum); Sheehan, supra note 89, at 119–20.

91. See Pluss, Jacques, Baldus de Ubaldis of Perugia on Dominium over Dotal Property, 52 Tijdschrift Voor Rechtsgeschiedenis 399, 409 (1984).Google Scholar

92. Hil. 8 Edw. 3, pl. 30, fol. 10, 11 (1334).

93. Mich. 13 Edw. 4, pl. 7, fol. 3 (1473); Pasch. 4 Hen. 7, pl. 1, fol. 5 (1489); Mich. 2 Hen. 8, Keilway 160, 72 Eng. Rep. 335 (1511). Cf. Pasch. 13 Edw. 4, fol. 9, 10 (1474); Argument in the Inner Temple, Case 33, 105 Seiden Society 147 (c. 1490s). For a lawyers' conundrum, see Trin. 7 Hen. 7, pl. 18, fol. 43 (1492) (a bailor could be hanged for stealing his own property from his bailee).

94. Pasch. 4 Hen. 7, pl. 1, fol. 5 (1489).

95. Hil. 33 Hen. 6, pl. 15, fol. 5 (1455); Mich. 35 Hen. 6, pl. 33, fol. 25, 29 (1456); Pasch. 5 Hen. 7, pl. 11, fol. 18 (1490); Mich. 20 Hen. 7, pl. 21, fol. 11, 12 (1504); Port's Notebook, 102 Seiden Society 106 (n.d.); Willion v. Berkley, 1 Plowden 223, 244, 75 Eng. Rep. 372 (1562); John Perkins, A Profitable Boke sec. 93 at 20D (London 1528; 15th ed., London 1827).

96. Port's Notebook, 102 Seiden Society 109 (n.d.).

97. Mich. 6 Edw. 2, pl. 38, 34 Seiden Society 142 (1312) (trespass & replevin suppose plaintiffout of property); London Eyre, 14 Edw. 2, 86 Seiden Society 133 (1321) (plaintiff asserts defendant claims property, defendant appropriated the property); Pasch. 19 Hen. 6, pl. 5, fol. 65 (1441) (property in taker); Mich. 2 Edw. 4, pl. 8, fol. 16 (1462) (Littleton); Hil. 21 Edw. 4, [pl. 6, fol. 74,] Brooke's Abridgement, Trespass pl. 358 (1483) (Brooke's note only); Mich. 6 Hen. 7, pl. 4, fol. 7, 8, 9 (1490); Argument in the Inner Temple, Case 33, 105 Seiden Society 147 (c. 1490s).

98. Although trespass was limited to damages, plaintiffs saw considerable advantages in this type of writ. In an action of trespass, the defendant was subject to arrest, and if the plaintiff prevailed, the defendant was subject to imprisonment until he satisfied the judgment.

99. See, e.g., Hil. 1 Hen. 5, pl. 4, fol. 3 (1414).

100. Mich. 6 Hen. 7, pl. 4, fol. 7, 8, 9 (1490) (droit del propriete).

101. Trin. 10 Hen. 7, pl. 13, fol. 27 (1492) (on dating, see 102 Seiden Society 151 n.2). Cf. Pasch. 12 Edw. 4, pl. 25, fol. 10 (1472) (property was always to plaintiff).

102. Mich. 11 Hen. 4, pl. 46, fol. 23 (1409) (sheep); Pasch. 12 Edw. 4, pl. 22, fol. 8, 9 (1472) (market); Pasch. 4 Hen. 7, pl. 9, fol. 8 (1489); Hil. 16 Hen. 7, pl. 3, fol. 4, 5 (1501); Mich. 18 Hen. 7, pl. 2, Keilway 46, 72 Eng. Rep. 204 (1502) (land); Colthirst v. Bejushin, 1 Plowden 23, 35, 75 Eng. Rep. 56 (1550); Mich. 15 & 16 Eliz., pl. 2, 3 Dyer 326b, 73 Eng. Rep. 738 (1573). These uses coincide with mentions of “owners” in statutes and parliamentary records. See infra text accompanying notes 153–55.

103. Hil. 8 Hen. 6, pl. 17, fol. 27 (1430); Mich. 22 Hen. 6, pl. 26, fol. 15 (1443); Mich. 22 Edw. 4, pl. 10, fol. 29, 30 (1482); Mich. 2 Ric. 3, pl. 39, fol. 14 (1484); Pasch. 4 Hen. 7, pl. 1, fol. 5 (1489); Mich. 14 Hen. 7, pl. 22, fol. 12, 13 (1498); Port's Notebook, 102 Seiden Society 151 (n.d.). Conversely, defendants who did not wish to deny the entirety of their plaintiffs' claims for trespass to goods had to give “color” to the plaintiffs' claims by confessing (in what came to be a legal fiction) that the plaintiffs once had property in the goods or animals taken. See Sutherland, Donald W., Legal Reasoning in the Fourteenth Century: The Invention of “Color” in Pleading, in On the Laws and Customs of England: Essays in Honor of Samuel E. Thorne 182, 183–84 (Arnold, Morris S. et al. eds., 1981)Google Scholar (color originated in novel disseisin).

104. See infra text accompanying notes 204–13 (St. German), 222–26 (Fortescue), 234 (Coke). This was also a theme in seventeenth-century political writing.

105. Tierney, Brian, Medieval Poor Law: A Sketch of Canonical Theory and Its Application in England 39–43 (1959).Google Scholar Before the twelfth century, some considered the patron saint of the church, or the church building itself, as the holder of the property interest. Later views ascribed the property to Christ, to the whole community of the clergy, or to the entire body of the Christian faithful.

106. Trin. 4 Edw. 2, pl. 32, 42 Seiden Society 134 (1311); Trin. 18 Edw. 3, pl. 4, R.S. 231 (1344); Mich. 47 Edw. 3, pl. 55, fol. 23 (1373); Argument in the Inner Temple, Moot Case 21, 105 Seiden Society 135 (c. 1490s).

107. Hil. 32 Edw. 1, R.S. 357 (1305); Mich. 11 Hen. 4, pl. 25, fol. 12 (1409); Trin. 9 Hen. 6, pl. 21, fol. 25 (1431); Pasch. 19 Hen. 6, pl. 10, fol. 66 (1441).

108. Mich. 7 Edw. 4, pl. 1, fol. 14 (1467); Mich. 9 Edw. 4, pl. 9, fol. 33, 34 (1469). The common lawyers had less trouble finding property in guilds and other bodies corporate. Pasch. 19 Hen. 6, pl. 10, fol. 66 (1441).

109. Property in executors: Hil. 32 Edw. 1, R.S. 357 (1305); Hil. 17 Edw. 3, Statham, supra note 72, Replegiare pl. 6, fol. 161a (1343); Hil. 39 Edw. 3, pl. [24], fol. 6 (1365); Mich. 13 Hen. 4, pl. 1, fol. 26 (1411); Trin. 15 Hen. 6, Statham, supra note 72, Executeurs pl. 15, fol. 87b (1437); Mich. 21 Hen. 6, pl. 1, fol. 1 (1442); Mich. 28 Hen. 6, pl. 19, fol. 4 (1449); Trin. 2 Edw. 4, pl. 1, fol. 13, 14 (1462); Pasch. 10 Edw. 4, pl. 1, fol. 1 (1470). Property in testator: 4 Edw. 2, pl. 3, 42 Selden Society 173 (1310–11); Mich. 17 Edw. 3, pl. 78, R.S. 355, 357 (1343); Mich. 24 Edw. 3, pl. 38, fol. 35 (1350); Mich. 48 Edw. 3, pl. 8, fol. 20 (1374); Pasch. 3 Hen. 4, pl. 8, fol. 15, 16 (1402); Pasch. 18 Hen. 6, pl. 3, fol. 3, 4 (1439); Trin. 37 Hen. 6, pl. 11, fol. 30 (1459); Pasch. 21 Edw. 4, pl. 2, fol. 21, 22 (1481); Trin. 20 Hen. 7, pl. 2, Keilway 61, 63, 72 Eng. Rep. 223 (1505). Cf. Pasch. 10 Edw. 4, pl. 1, 47 Selden Society 1, 3 (1470) (testator was no longer in being); Hales v. Petit, 1 Plowden 253, 259, 75 Eng. Rep. 396 (1562) (dead men could have no property).

110. See 2 Pollock & Maitland, supra note 58, at 576–78. Paul Brand has gathered transcripts of plea rolls and manuscript reports from the 1270s onward in replevin cases where property in the chattels came into issue. I thank Dr. Brand for providing me with copies of these sources.

111. To defendant: 21 Edw. 1, R.S. 107 (1293); Hil. 32 Edw. 1, R.S. 55 (1304); 2 Edw. 2, pl. 16A, 17 Selden Society 65 (1308–09); Mich. 31 Edw. 3, Statham, supra note 72, Gager de Deliverans pl. 6, fol. 107a (1357); 1 The Reports of Sir John Spelman, supra note 65, at 142 (1533). To third party: Trin. 33 Edw. 3, Statham, supra note 72, Replegiare pl. 5, fol. 161a (1359); Hil. 6 Hen. 4, pl. 17, fol. 2 (1405); Trin. 2 Hen. 6, pl. 10, fol. 14 (1424); Mich. 9 Hen. 6, pl. 14, fol. 39 (1430); Hil. 19 Hen. 6, Statham, supra note 72, Barre pl. 75, fol. 35b (1441); Hil. 20 Hen. 6, pl. 6, fol. 18 (1442); Trin. 5 Edw. 4, pl. 19, fol. 5 (1465); 1 The Reports of Sir John Spelman, supra note 65, at 81 (1527); but see Mich. 21 Edw. 4, pl. 24, fol. 54 (1481) (plaintiff in replevin need not have property). To plaintiff and third party: Trin. 33 Edw. 3, Statham, supra note 72, Replegiare pl. 5, fol. 161a (1359). To fewer than all co-plaintiffs: 2 Edw. 2, pl. 62, 17 Seiden Society 128 (1308–09); 1 The Reports of Sir John Spelman, supra note 65, at 202 (1522); Constable, supra note 83, at 229 (1489). To co-plaintiffs severally and not in common: Pasch. 11 Hen. 6, pl. 17, fol. 31 (1433); Pasch. 34 Hen. 6, pl. 8, fol. 37 (1456); Pasch. 10 Edw. 4, pl. 8, 47 Seiden Society 36 (1470); Mich. 12 Hen. 7, pl. 3, fol. 4, 5 (1496); 1 The Reports of Sir John Spelman, supra note 65, at 202 (1522).

112. Mich. 30 Edw. 3, pl. [40], fol. 22 (1356). Paul Brand has found plea rolls and manuscript reports of writs of proprietate probanda from 1290 onward. I thank Dr. Brand for providing me with copies of these sources.

113. Coke, Edward, The First Part of the Institutes or, A Commentary Upon Littleton 145b (London 1628)Google Scholar; On the original logic of the proposition that no one need answer for his or her freehold except by the king's writ, see Milsom, S.F.C., The Legal Foundations of English Feudalism (1976).Google Scholar

114. Statham, supra note 72; Fitzherbert, supra note 39; Lincoln's Inn MS Hale 181, fol. 236r. A later work, Brooke, Robert, La Graunde Abridgement (London 1573)Google Scholar had an alphabetical entry for “Propertie.” No finding aid or index in any early or modern edition of Year Book material identified the whole range of “property” uses. Most indices omitted the term altogether.

115. Mich. 30 Edw. 3, pl. 64, fol. 30 (1356); Mich. 7 Hen. 4, pl. 5, fol. 27, 28 (1405); Trin. 7 Hen. 4, pl. 3, fol. 47 (1406); Hil. 14 Hen. 4, pl. 32, fol. 24 (1413); Mich. 31 Hen. 6, in Statham, supra note 72, Proprietate Probanda pl. 5, fol. 138a (1452); Hil 31 Hen. 6, pl. 1, fol. 12 (1453); Mich. 39 Hen. 6, pl. 47, fol. 35 (1460); Mich. 21 Edw. 4, pl. 35, fol. 64 (1481); Constable, supra note 83, at 228–232 (1489); 1 The Reports of Sir John Spelman, supra note 65, at 189, 204 (n.d); Coke, supra note 113, at 145b. One reporter reproduced the writ, Mich. 1 Edw. 4, pl. 18, fol. 9 (1461); and another noted that the writ was read aloud in court, but that he did not hear it, Mich. 11 Hen. 4, pl. 10, fol. 4 (1409).

116. The determination of property in the country was not a matter of record, and plaintiffs tried occasionally to relitigate the issue. Mich. 30 Edw. 3, pl. [40], fol. 22 (1356).

117. Mich. 31 Hen. 6, Statham, supra note 72, Proprietate Probanda pl. 5, fol. 138a (1452); 3 Fitzherbert, supra note 39, Proprietate Probanda pl. 4 [5], fol. 26v (1452).

118. Trin. 1 Edw. 5, pl. 5, fol. 3 (1483).

119. See, e.g., Pasch. 20 Edw. 4, pl. 1, 47 Seiden Society 1, 3 (1470) (Littleton J.)

120. Mich. 8 Hen. 4, pl. 2, fols. 1, 2 (K.B. 1406).

121. See, e.g., Hil. 12 Hen. 4, pl. 19, fol. 18 (1411) (bailment by one of two owners); Trin. 3 Hen. 6, pl. 10, fol. 49 (1425) (arguing that if two had property in common, one could pass that property to a purchaser); Mich. 2 Ric. 3, pl. 42, fol. 15, 16 (1484); Argument in the Inner Temple, Moot Case 47, 105 Seiden Society 161 (c. 1490s). Goods held “in common” were not available for strangers to use and possess. See infra note 175.

122. See, e.g., Hil. 9 Hen. 6, pl. 17, fol. 64 (C.P. 1431) (Paston, J., posing a dilemma).

123. Hil. 3 Hen. 7, pl. 16, fol. 4 (1488). Cf. Hil. 19 Edw. 3, pl. 34, R.S. 507 (1345); Constable, supra note 83, at 227 (1489).

124. Mich. 11 Hen. 4, pl. 39, fol. 17 (1409) (Thirning C.J.). Cf. Mich. 1 Edw. 4, pl. 18, fol. 9 (1461) (defendant was lessor).

125. Constable, supra note 83, at 231 (1489).

126. Hil. 21 Hen. 7, pl. 23, fol. 14, 15 (1506).

127. Mich. 20 Hen. 7, pl. 1, fol. 1 (1504).

128. Hil. 21 Hen. 7, pl. 23, fol. 14, 15 (1506); Mich. 21 Hen. 7, pl. 7, Keilway 71, 72 Eng. Rep. 231 (1506).

129. I use “absolute” here in the modern sense, rather than its weaker sixteenth-century sense. See Chrimes, S.B., The Constitutional Ideas of Dr. John Cowell, 64 Eng. Hist. Rev. 461, 481 n.l (1949).Google Scholar

130. For a full discussion extending to manuscript sources, see Baker, supra note 65, at 210–15.

131. Mich. 37 Hen. 6, pl. 12, fol. 6 (1458). Thus it was argued that those with “rights of common” to graze animals on land had no “property” in the grass. 1 The Reports of Sir John Spelman, supra note 65, at 91 (1522).

132. In an early case, one who leased a field from a life tenant could reap the grain he sowed after the life tenant's death. Hil. 19 Edw. 3, pl. 23, R.S. 465, 467 (1345). But one who bought trees from the holder of a limited interest in land acquired “property” in the timber “conditionally” and had to cut them down before the landholder's interest ended. Hil. 18 Edw. 4, pl. 1, fol. 21, 1 (1479).

133. Mich. 35 Hen. 6, pl. 3, fol. 2 (1456).

134. Mich. 37 Hen. 6, pl. 20, fol. 10 (1458).

135. Pasch. 12 Edw. 4, pl. 10, fol. 4, 5 (1472); Trin. 15 Edw. 4, pl. 11, fol. 31 (1475).

136. Mich. 2 Hen. 7, pl. 4, fol. 1, 2 (1486); 1 The Reports of Sir John Spelman, supra note 65, at 215 (1534).

137. See 2 Bracton, supra note 25, at 45–47 (fols. 9b–10b).

138. Mich. 6 Hen. 7, pl. 4, fol. 7, 8, 9 (1490). See also Anon., Popham 38, 79 Eng. Rep. 1157 (K.B. 1594) (you mix your hay with mine, embroider my garment, cast your gold into my melting pot).

139. Trin. 3 Hen. 6, pl. 34, fol. 55 (1425); Pasch. 7 Hen. 6, pl. 41, fol. 36 (1429).

140. Trin. 22 Hen. 6, pl. 11, fol. 59 (1444); Mich. 18 Edw. 4, pl. 12, fol. 14 (1478); Mich. 7 Hen. 7, pl. 1, fol. 16 (1491); Mich. 10 Hen. 7, pl. 12, fol. 6, 7 (1494); Trin. 10 Hen. 7, pl. 28, fol. 30 (1495); Mich. 12 Hen. 7, pl. 5, fol. 25 (1496); Mich. 12 Hen. 7, pl. 2, Keilway 30, 72 Eng. Rep. 187 (1498); Argument in the Inner Temple, Moot Case 57, 105 Seiden Society 168 (c. 1490s); 1 The Reports of Sir John Spelman, supra note 65, at 64 (c. 1511–13); Trin. 12 Hen. 8, pl. 3, fol. 3, 4, 5 (1520); Mich. 12 Hen. 8, pl. 2, fol. 9, 10, 11 (1520); Mich. 14 Hen. 8, pl. 1, fol. 1 (1523). Cf. Mich. 49 Hen. 6, pl. 10, 47 Seiden Society 124 (1470) (possessor of nests had property in fledgling sparrowhawks).

141. 2 Bracton, supra note 25, at 41–42 (fols. 8, 8b). Cf. id. at 166–67 (fol. 55b).

142. Note, for example, the classical motif in Mich. 12 Hen. 8, pl. 2, fol. 9, 10, 11 (1520) (bos mortuus non est bos; cervus mortuus non est cervus, homo mortuus non est homo).

143. On the Roman and civilian doctrine, see Donahue, Charles Jr, Animalia ferae naturae: Rome, Bologna, Leyden, Oxford and Queen's County, N.Y., in Studies in Roman Law in Memory of A. Arthur Schiller 41–55 (Bagnall, Roger S. & Harris, William V. eds., 1986).Google Scholar

144. Trin. 12 Hen. 8, pl. 3, fol. 4 (1520) (Brooke).

145. Colthirst v. Bejushin, 1 Plowden 21, 31, 75 Eng. Rep. 50 (1550).

146. Sharington v. Strotton, 1 Plowden 298, 308, 75 Eng. Rep. 469 (1565).

147. Graysbrook v. Fox, 1 Plowden 275, 280, 75 Eng. Rep. 427 (1565).

148. The Case of Mines, 1 Plowden 310, 315–316, 75 Eng. Rep. 480 (1567).

149. Hil. 6 Hen. 4, pl. 6, fol. 1 (K.B. 1405). The same language is found in the earliest printed report of this case, Richard Tottel's edition of 1553, 6 Hen. 4, pl. [6], fol. [62r, 62v]. A reference to severall proprieté in land in Mich. 12 Rie. 2, pl. 17, Ames 67, 68 (1388), is a misreading of Lincoln's Inn Hale MS 77, fol. 251, 1. 6 (severall tenaunce). A genuine, though specialized, usage in Mich. 11 Hen. 4, pl. 12, fol. 5 (1409), described the right to cross one's own land, by analogy to a right of way across another's land, as “the property (propriete) that he had in the soil.”

150. Old Natura Brevium fol. 20v (London c. 1518).

151. Mich. 37 Hen. 6, pl. 18, fol. 8 (1458); Pasch. 17 Edw. 4, pl. 2, fol. 1, 2 (1478). For an early example of analogy to property in a case about land, see Pasch. 17 Edw. 2, fol. 543 (1324).

152. Hil. 8 Hen. 7, pl. 3, fol. 10 (1493); Stringefellow v. Brownesoppe, 1 Dyer 67b, 73 Eng. Rep. 143 (1549).

153. 7 Hen. 7, ch. 2, sec. 5 (1491); 11 Hen. 7, ch. 17 (1494); Mich. 18 Hen. 7, pl. 2, Keilway 46, 72 Eng. Rep. 204 (1502). See also 1 Hen. 8, ch. 5, sec. 4 (1509) (owner or proprietary); 21 Hen. 8, ch. 11 (1530) (owners and occupiers of ground); 32 Hen. 8, ch. 7, sec. 1 (1540) (owners and proprietaries). For earlier mentions of owners of goods, see 4 Rotuli Parliamentorum 390, col. 1 (1432); 6 id. 65, col. 2 (1473); 4 Hen. 7, ch. 10, sec. 3 (1487).

154. 24 Hen. 8, ch. 12, sec. 1(6) (1532).

155. Sharington v. Strotton, 1 Plowden 298, 308, 75 Eng. Rep. 469 (1565); The Case of Mines, 1 Plowden 310, 315–16, 75 Eng. Rep. 480 (1567); Davy v. Pepys, 2 Plowden 438, 440–41, 75 Eng. Rep. 662 (1573); Paramour v. Yardley, 2 Plowden 539, 543, 75 Eng. Rep. 800 (1579).

156. 38 Hen. 8, Brooke's New Cases 13, 73 Eng. Rep. 852 (1546).

157. See infra text accompanying notes 228–30, 267–69.

158. I started with Anglo-Norman Dictionary 560, 561 (William Rothwell ed., 1977-); Middle English Dictionary 1399–1408 (Robert E. Lewis ed., 1956-). For reasons to prefer the study of usage in surviving vernacular texts to usage in Latin sources, see Gurevich, supra note 62, at 2.

159. Bosworth, Joseph, An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary 28–29 (Toller, T. Northcote ed., London 1882–98)Google Scholar; Campbell, Alistair, Enlarged Addenda and Corrigenda to An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary 3 (1972).Google Scholar

160. E.g., Caedmon, Genesis, 1. 2141, in The Junius Manuscript 64 (George Philip Knapp ed., 1931) (Genesis 14:22); Cynewulf, Crist and Satan, 1. 1198, in Codex Exoniensis: A Collection of Anglo-Saxon Poetry 73, 1. 32 (Benjamin Thorpe ed., London 1842).

161. E.g., II Canute, ch. 24, sec. 1, in The Laws of the Kings of England From Edmund to Henry I, at 186 (A.J. Robertson ed. & trans., 1925); Hlothhere & Eadric, chs. 1, 3, in The Laws of the Earliest English Kings 18 (F.L. Attenborough ed., 1963).

162. E.g., Hlothhere & Eadric, chs. 1, 3, in Laws of the Earliest English Kings, supra note 161, at 18; Ine, ch. 42, sec. 1; ch. 53, in id. at 52–54; III Aethelred, ch. 4, sec. 1, in id. at 66.

163. MS verso of The York Gospels in the Dean and Chapter Library, York, ff. 156b, 157, in Anglo-Saxon Charters 166, 11. 11, 16, 26 (A.J. Robertson ed., 1939). The term ágenland is not recorded elsewhere. id. at 415.

164. See, e.g., Geoffrey Chaucer, The Tale of Melibeus, 1. 2364; The Nun's Priest's Tale, 1. 4142, in Canterbury Tales 210, 274 (Walter W. Skeat ed., Oxford 1894); Boethius, , De Consolatione Philosophiae 54, 100, 173–74 (Morris, Richard ed., London 1886)Google Scholar (Geoffrey Chaucer trans.) (bk. 3, prose 6,1. 1435; bk. 3, met. 11, 1. 2847; bk. 5, prose 6, 11. 5028, 5083); John Gower, Confessio Amantis, bk. 7,11. 63, 157, 369, 432, 601, 896, 976, 1001, 1159, 1177, 1237, 1492, in 3 The Complete Works of John Gower: The English Works 235–66 (G.C Macaulay ed., 1901); William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream, 3:2:368; The Life and Death of King Richard II, 3:2:131; The Second Part of King Henry IV, 4:2:99; Hamlet, 2:1:104, 3:2:247; As You Like It, 3:2:26; Measure for Measure, 1:1:3; All's Well That Ends Well, 2:3:131; Antony and Cleopatra, 1:1:60 [all citations to 1–3 The Complete Oxford Shakespeare (1987)].

165. A rare mention of “properties” as attributes or characteristics in the Year Books is Mich. 39 Hen. 6, pl. 18, fol. 15 (K.B. 1460) (the two properties that rejoinders must have).

166. E.g., Raymond du Puy, The Hospitallers' Riwle 5, 1. 141, Anglo-Norman Texts no. 42 (K.V. Sinclair ed., 1984) (c. 1185); Jack Upland, in Chaucerian and Other Pieces 196, sec. 41, 11. 190, 194 (Walter W. Skeat ed., Oxford 1897) (1402); A Stanzaic Life of Christ 345, 1. 10157, Early English Text Society no. 166 (Frances A. Foster ed., 1926) (c. 1400); John Capgrave, Life of St. Augustine 44,1. 4, Early English Text Society no. 140 (J.J. Munro ed., 1910) (c. 1450).

167. The French Text of the Ancrene Riwle 111, 11. 30–31, Early English Text Society no. 240 (W.H. Trethewey ed., 1958) (c. 1325); The Book of Vices and Virtues 33, 11. 23, 24, Early English Text Society no. 217 (W. Nelson Francis ed., 1942) (trans. of Lorens d'Orleans, Somme Le Roi, c. 1375); 6 Higden, Ranulph, Polychronicon … Monachi Cestrensis 345, Rolls Series no. 41 (Lumby, Joseph Rawson ed., London 1876)Google Scholar (John Trevisa trans., ante 1387); A Pistle of Preier, in Deonise Hid Diuinite and Other Treatises 58, 1. 9, Early English Text Society no. 231 (Phyllis Hodgson ed., 1955) (c. 1390); The Declaring of Religion, in Twenty-Six Political and Other Poems 81, stanza 8, 1. 59, Early English Text Society no. 124 (J. Kail ed., 1904) (c. 1421); id. at 83, stanza 18, 1. 141; Comment on the Testament of St. Francis, in The English Works of John Wyclif 49, Early English Text Society no. 74 (F.D. Matthew ed., London 1880) (c. 1420); Optional Expansion to Sermon 11, First Sunday in Lent, in Lollard Sermons 142, 1. 406, Early English Text Society no. 294 (Gloria Cigman ed., 1989) (c. 1425); Nicholas Love, The Mirrour of the Blessed Lyf of Jesu Christ 318 (Lawrence F Powell ed., 1908) (trans, of Bonaventura, Mediationes Vitae Christi, 1430); Additions to the Rules of St. Saviour and St. Bridget, in The History and Antiquities of Syon Monastery 261 (George James Aungier ed., London 1840) (c. 1450); Life of St. Cuthbert in English Verse 60,1. 2054, Surtees Society no. 87 (James Thomas Fowler ed., Durham 1891) (c. 1450); The boke of the Craft of Dying, in 2 Yorkshire, Writers: Richard Rolle of Hampole and his Followers 417 (Horstman, C. ed., London 1896)Google Scholar (c. 1500). See also Wycliffe, John, Tractatus de Apostasia 30, 1. 28, Wyclif Society no. 9 (Dziewicki, Michael Henry ed., London 1889)Google Scholar (1383) (Latin).

168. Ruysbroeck, Jan Van, Treatise of Perfection of the Sons of God, in The Chastising of God's Children 238, 1. 7 (Bazire, Joyce & Colledge, Eric eds., 1957)Google Scholar (c. 1450); Guillaume de Deguileville, The Pilgrimage of the Life of Man 658, 11. 24591, 24593, Early English Text Society Extra Series no. 83 (FJ. Furnivall ed., 1901) (John Lydgate trans., ante 1475); Reginald Pecock, The Donet 52, 1. 8, Early English Text Society no. 156 (Elsie Vaughan Hitchcock ed., 1921); Thomas A. Kempis, The Earliest English Translations of the First Three Books of the De Imitatione Christi 112, 1. 28, Early English Text Society Extra Series no. 63 (John K. Ingram ed., London 1893) (ante 1500).

169. Deguileville, supra note 168, at 490, 11. 18353–69.

170. Kempis, supra note 168, at 112, 1. 28 (sine… omni proprietate in orig.).

171. Erasmus, Desiderios, Enchiridion Militis Christiana: An English Version 152, 1. 10, Early English Text Society no. 282 (O'Donnell, Anne M. ed., 1981)Google Scholar (English trans. 1533–34); id. at 158, 1. 31.

172. More, Thomas, Utopia [44] (Robinson, Raphe trans., London 1551)Google Scholar; More, Thomas, Utopia, in 4 The Complete Works of St. Thomas More 104, 1. 17 (Surtz, Edward & Hexter, J.H. eds., 1965)Google Scholar (sublata prorsus proprietate in orig.). Thomas More did not use the term elsewhere in Utopia, though he recurred several times to the evils of private ownership.

173. Pecock, supra note 168, at 52, 1. 8.

174. Deguileville, supra note 168, at 490, 11. 18353–64; id. at 658, 11. 24593–94; Erasmus, supra note 171, at 158, 1. 31.

175. 5 Cursor Mundi 1556, 1. 28389, Early English Text Society no. 68 (Richard Morris ed., London 1878)(ante 1400); The Romaunt of the Rose 86, 1. 6594 (Frederick J. Furnivall ed., 1911) (ante 1425).

176. “In the earlier period the word common implied common exclusiveness quite as much as common enjoyment.” Tawney, supra note 51, at 238.

177. The Testament of St. Francis, in 1 Monumenta Franciscana 568, Rolls Series no. 4 (J.S. Brewer ed., London 1858) (note on The Pouerte of the Freers Minor, c. 1525); see Gregory IX, Quo elongati (1230) in Bullarii Franciscani Epitome 230a (C. Eubel ed., 1908) (“We say therefore that [the friars] ought not to have proprietas, either individual or common, but may have the usus alone of the utensils and books and moveable goods which they are permitted to have … leaving the dominion of their settlements and houses to those to whom it is known to pertain.”); Nicholas III, Exiit qui seminat (1279), in id. at 293a–293b; Decretal VI 5.12.3 in 2 Corpus Iuris Canonici Cols. 1109, 1113–14 (Emil Friedberg ed., Leipzig 1879); M.D. Lambert, Franciscan Poverty 86–89, 141–45 (1961). Cf. id. at 50–51 (no mention of proprietas or dominium in St. Francis's own writings).

178. Cranmer, Thomas, Of Good Works, in Miscellaneous Writings and Letters 147 (Cox, John Edmund ed., Cambridge 1846)Google Scholar (1560 & 1562 editions add “that is to say, proper in common”).

179. For such arguments, see Gottfried Dietze, in Defense of Property 9–11 (1971); V.G. Kiernan, Private Property in History, in Family and Inheritance: Rural Society in Western Europe, 1200–1800, at 361, 364–65 (Jack Goody et al. eds., 1976).

180. Gower, Confessie Amantis, bk. 5, 1. 6098, in 3 Complete Works, supra note 164, at 113; The Tale of Beryn 101, 1. 3375, Early English Text Society Extra Series no. 105 (W.A. Clouston ed., 1909) (c. 1460). See also Jacob's Well 138, 1. 27, Early English Text Society no. 115 (Arthur Brandeis ed., 1900) (c. 1450) (the rich sinner should make restitution to the “owners” of his goods).

181. Gower, supra note 164, at 194 (bk. 2, 1. 2377).

182. id. at'289 (bk. 3, 1. 2326).

183. id. at 449 (bk. 5, 1. 1727).

184. Reginald Pecock, The Reule of Crysten Religioun 335, Early English Text Society no. 171 (William Cabell Greet ed., 1927) (c. 1443); Pecock, supra note 168, at 75,1. 23 (make laws “in contracts and covenants about property and thereto appurtenant, [and] in keeping peace”). Pecock's writings about law are discussed extensively in Norman Doe, Fundamental Authority in Late Medieval English Law (1990).

185. Pecock, supra note 168, at 78, 1. 22.

186. Dan Michel, Ayenbite of Inwyt, or Remorse of Conscience 37, Early English Text Society no. 23 (Richard Morris ed., London 1866) (1340); 6 Higden, supra note 167, at 345.

187. Pecock, supra note 184, at 293.

188. York Enrolment Book B.Y. 87, entry for Jan. 3, 1442, in A Volume of English Miscellanies 18, Surtees Society no. 85 (James Raine, Jr. ed., Durham 1890); Petition of Newcastle Merchants, December 15, 1451, from Public Record Office, Misc. Roll 468, in 3 Archaeologia Aeliana (n.s) 183, 186 (1860); Will of John Baret of Bury, 1463, in Wills and Inventories from the Registers of the Commissary of Bury St. Edmund's 22, Camden Society no. 49 (Samuel Tymms ed., London 1850); John Capgrave, The Chronicle of England 170, Rolls Series no. 1 (Francis Charles Hingeston ed., London 1858) (ante 1464).

189. The English Register of Oseney Abbey 161,1. 21, Early English Text Society no. 133 (Andrew Clark ed., 1907); id. at 162, 11. 2, 29 (entries for January 27, 1443). Agreement dated 1509 from Bishop John Longland's Register of Memoranda at Lincoln, leaf 240, in Lincoln Diocese Documents 132,1. 1, Early English Text Society no. 149 (Andrew Clark ed., 1914).

190. Van Ruysbroeck, supra note 168, at 242, 1. 15; id. at 243, 11. 22, 24. See 2 Pollock & Maitland, supra note 58, at 153 n.1.

191. Neither abridgements, indexes, nor marginal notes would direct readers to every case discussing property in the Year Books.

192. On this increase in “self-conscious” writing about the common law, see, e.g., Holdsworth, W.S., The Reception of Roman Law in the Sixteenth Century, 27 Law Q. Rev. 236, 239 (1912)Google Scholar; Peter Stein, Continental Influences on English Legal Thought, 1600–1900, in La Formazione Storica Del Diritto Moderno in Europa 1105, 1107 (1977); Wilfrid R. Prest, The Art of Law and the Law of God: Sir Henry Finch (1558–1625), in Puritans and Revolutionaries: Essays in Seventeenth-Century History Presented to Christopher Hill 94, 115–16 (1978).

193. Barton, J.L., Introduction to St. German's Doctor and Student, 91 Selden Society xiv (Plucknett, T.F.T. & Barton, J.L. eds., 1974)Google Scholar; J.A. Guy, Christopher St. German on Chancery and Statute 3 (1985).

194. Barton, supra note 193, at xx; Kelley, Donald R., The Conscience of the King's ‘Good Servant’, 52 Thought 293, 294 (1977).Google Scholar St. German refers to these works in the Second Dialogue, 91 Selden Society 236–37.

195. First Dialogue, 91 Selden Society 130–31; Second Dialogue, id. at 236.

196. Barton, supra note 193, at xxi. St. German composed the First Dialogue in Latin and the Second in English. The First Dialogue was published in an English translation, somewhat shortened, soon after the Second Dialogue appeared in that form. id. at lxix–lxxvi. See Second Dialogue, 91 Selden Society 177.

197. Thorne, Samuel E., St. Germain's Doctor and Student, 10 Library 421, 421 (1930)Google Scholar; Stuart E. Prall, The Agitation for Law Reform During the Puritan Revolution, 1640–1660, at 5 (1966). Enid Campbell has doubted the impact of St. German's generalizations. Campbell, Enid, Thomas Hobbes and the Common Law, 1 Tasmanian U. L. Rev. 20, 43 (1958).Google Scholar

198. Guy, supra note 193, at 19; 91 Selden Society 8–11.

199. 91 Selden Society 32–35.

200. J. Inst. 1.2.1; D.l cc. 1–2, 6–9; 2 Bracton, supra note 25, at 26–27 (fols. 3b–4).

201. See, e.g., Philipp Melanchthon, Loci Communes 111–18, 130–31 (1st ed., 1521, Charles Leander Hill trans., 1944); 1 Richard Hooker, of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity 58–69, 86–110, 119–24, 130–42 (1st ed., London 1593) (Georges Edelen ed., 1977) (bk. 1, chs. 2–3, 8–10, 12–13, 15–16).

202. A scattering of references by common lawyers to divine and natural law can be found in Mich. 13 Edw. 3, pl. 51, R.S. 83, 97 (1339); Pasch. 34 Hen. 4, pl. 9, fol. 38 (1456); Mich. 8 Edw. 4, pl. 9, fol. 12 (1468); Pasch. 12 Edw. 4, pl. 22, fol. 8, 9 (1472); Hil. 1 Hen. 7, pl. 3, fol. 6 (1486); Mich. 11 Hen. 7, pl. 35, fol. 11, 12 (1495); Mich. 20 Hen. 7, pl. 21, fol. 11 (1504); Trin. 12 Hen. 8, pl. 2, fol. 2 (1520); Trin. 7 Hen. 8, pl. 5, Keilway 180, 185, 75 Eng. Rep. 362 (1515).

203. 91 Selden Society 30–31 (not in Latin editions).

204. 91 Selden Society 18–19 (Latin editions only).

205. 91 Selden Society 18–19 (Latin editions only).

206. 91 Selden Society 28–29, 56–57.

207. 91 Selden Society 132–35.

208. 91 Selden Society 38–39, 183, 228. The same account is found in the proemium to another popular elementary legal text of the time, Perkins, John, A Profitable Book, Treating of the Laws of England xiv (1st ed., London 1528, 15th ed., London 1827).Google Scholar

209. 91 Selden Society xxiv–xxv; Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 2a 2ae, q. 66, art. 2; Tierney, supra note 105, at 27–33; L.W.B. Brockliss, French Higher Education in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: A Cultural History 303–4 (1987); Tierney, Brian, Public Expediency and Natural Law, in Authority and Power: Studies on Medieval Law and Government Presented to Walter Ullmann 167, 176 (Tierney, Brian & Linehan, Peter eds., 1980).Google Scholar

210. See Gratian, Decretum D.8, c. 1, in 1 Corpus Iuris Canonici cols. 12–13; 2 Carlyle & Carlyle, supra note 13, at 136–42; 5 id. at 14–20.

211. See, e.g., Colet, John, Epistolae B. Pauli ad Romanos Expositio, in Opuscula Quaedam Theologica 134, 259 (Lupton, J.H. ed., London 1876)Google Scholar (“This law of a corrupter nature is the same as that Law of Nations, resorted to by nations all over the world; a law which brought in ideas of meum and tuum–of property [proprietas], that is to say, and deprivation [privatio;] ideas clean contrary to a good and unsophisticated nature: for that would have a community in all things”) It was elementary learning among civilians that property originated by the “law of nations” or “law of peoples.” J. Inst. 2.1.11.

212. See Joseph Canning, The Political Thought of Baldus de Ubaldis 79–82 (1987); J.P. Canning, Law, Sovereignty and Corporation Theory, 1300–1450, in Cambridge History, supra note 43, at 454, 457–59; Janet Coleman, Property and Poverty, in id. at 607, 617–25, 637–48; 1 Lewis, supra note 44, at 94–97; Gierke, supra note 43, at 79–81, 178–81 nn.271–280.

213. 91 Selden Society 38–39, 146–47, 183, 291; see 91 Selden Society xxx.

214. E.g., 91 Selden Society 158 (Doctor).

215. 91 Selden Society 4–5 (terrarum possessione and dominio rerum), 222.

216. 91 Selden Society 62–63, 98–99, 140–41, 253, also 222.

217. 91 Selden Society 134–35, 197.

218. 91 Selden Society 228, 231; cf. 91 Selden Society 269, 296; Coing, Helmut, Common Law and Civil Law in the Development of European Civilization — Possibilities of Comparison, in Englische und Kontinentale Rechtsgeschichte: Ein Forschungsprojekt 31, 36 (Coing, Helmut & Nörr, Knut Wolfgang eds., 1985)Google Scholar; J.L. Barton, Towards a General Law of Contract, in id. at 45, 45–46 (summarizing a paper by Richard Helmholz).

219. Fortescue, John, De Natura Legis Naturae, in The Works of Sir John Fortescue (Fortescue, Thomas, Clermont, Lord ed., London 1869).Google Scholar Chrimes dates the composition of De Natura to 1461–63, in John Fortescue, de Laudibus Legum Anglie lxvi, lxxiii (S.B. Chrimes ed. & trans., 1949).

220. The few known MSS. date no later than the early sixteenth century. Fortescue, De Laudibus, supra note 219, at 214–15; Charles Plummer, notes to Fortescue, John, The Governance of England 75–76 (Plummer, Charles ed., Oxford 1885).Google Scholar It was first published in 1714.

221. Fortescue, De Natura, supra note 219, at 66–68, 106–8, 164. See Stephan Kuttner, Harmony From Dissonance: An Interpretation of Medieval Canon Law 46 (1960); Canning, supra note 212, at 69, 76, 78; Harding, Alan, The Reflection of Thirteenth-Century Legal Growth in Saint Thomas's Writings, in Aquinas and Problems of his Time 18, 30 (Verbeke, G. & Verhelst, D. eds., 1976).Google Scholar

222. Fortescue, De Natura, supra note 219, at 82, 149–50 (property in immoveable and praedial things, movable and personal things); id. at 168. See Keaney, Winifred Gleeson, Sir John Fortescue and the Politics of the Chain of Being, in Jacob's Ladder and the Tree of Life: Concepts of Hierarchy and the Great Chain of Being 221, 230 (Kuntz, Marion Leathers & Kuntz, Paul Grimley eds., 1987)Google Scholar; Edgar W. Lacy, The Relation of Property and Dominion to the Law of Nature, 24 Speculum 407, 407–9 (1949); Schlatter, Private Property: The History of an Idea 72–75 (1951).

223. Fortescue, De Natura, supra note 219, at 82 (invoking God's words to Adam, Genesis 3:19, “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat [thy] bread.”). See Schlatter, supra note 222, at 73. John Locke's version is set forth in chapter 2, section 6 of his Second Treatise of Government. Locke, supra note 14, at 271.

224. Fortescue, De Natura, supra note 219, at 91, 102, 106–8, 145. But kings could take land away from one person to give to another, id. at 83–84.

225. id. at 125, 147; cf. Fortescue, De titulo Edwardi Comitis Marchiae, in Works of Sir John Fortescue, supra note 219, at 66*; Defensio Juris Domus Lancastriae, in id. at 506.

226. Doe, supra note 184, at 26–27; Coleman, supra note 43, at 614–25, 638–40; Tierney, supra note 209, at 177–82.

227. See, e.g., De Haeresibus, ch. 14, in Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum (1549); cf. The Forty-Two Articles of Religion of 1552, no. 37, and the well-known Thirty-Nine Articles, no. 38.

228. William Fulbeck, Direction, or Preparative to the Study of the Law 144 (repr. 1987).

229. The Use of the Law, fol. 1, publ, with Bacon's, Francis maxims in The Elements of the Common Lawes of England (London 1630)Google Scholar (spelling and punctuation modernized). The anonymous author then went on to discuss “property in lands” by entry, descent, escheat, and conveyance, fols. 26–72, and “property in goods,” fols. 72–84. See also Dodderidge, John, The Lawyers' Light 16–42, 65–66 (London 1629).Google Scholar

230. Bacon, Francis, A Preparation toward the Union of Laws (1st ed., London 1641)Google Scholarin 7 The Works of Francis Bacon 731, 733 (James Spedding et al. eds., London 1872).

231. Cowell, supra note 40, s.v. Propertie, sig. [Fff 4]-[Fff 4v] (Cambridge 1607). See supra, text accompanying notes 40, 48.

232. For example, an interest in standing trees, when divided from interest in land, is “property”; when reunited, it is “ownership.” Herlakenden's Case (Ivy v. Herlakenden), 4 Co. Rep. 62a, 62b–63b, 76 Eng. Rep. 1027–1030 (K.B. 1589).

233. Coke, supra note 113, at 394b.

234. id. at 116b.

235. De Jure Regis Ecclesiastico, 5 Co. Rep. la*, 29b*, 77 Eng. Rep. 34 (quoting 24 Hen. 8, ch. 12, sec. 1[6] [1532]); Coke, Edward, The Fourth Part of the Institutes 321 (London 1644).Google Scholar

236. Lampeťs Case (Lampet v. Starkey), 10 Co. Rep. 46b, 50b, 77 Eng. Rep. 1002 (C.R 1612); see Coke, supra note 113, at 266a, 369a; Coke, Edward, The Third Part of the Institutes 110 (London 1643).Google Scholar

237. Coke, supra note 113, at 145b.

238. Constable's Case (Constable v. Gamble), 5 Co. Rep. 106a, 108b, 77 Eng. Rep. 223 (K.B. 1601).

239. Coke, Edward, The Second Part of the Institutes 167 (London 1642)Google Scholar; see Coke, supra note 236, at 110.

240. Beckwith's Case (Colgate v. Blyth), 2 Co. Rep. 56b, 57b, 76 Eng. Rep. 546 (C.P. 1589).

241. Butler v. Baker, 3 Co. Rep. 25a, 30b, 33b, 76 Eng. Rep. 695–96, 704 (K.B. 1591).

242. Clere's Case (Parker v. Clere), 6 Co. Rep. 17b, 18a, 77 Eng. Rep. 280 (Assise 1599).

243. Pexhall's Case (Barton v. Moore), 8 Co. Rep. 83b, 85b, 77 Eng. Rep. 604 (C.P. 1609).

244. Combe's Case (Atlee v. Banks), 9 Co. Rep. 75a, 76a, 77 Eng. Rep. 844 (C.P. 1613).

245. The Case of Sutton's Hospital (Baxter v. Sutton), 10 Co. Rep. 23a, 26b, 77 Eng. Rep. 965 (K.B. 1612).

246. Corbet's Case (Clere v. Corbet), 7 Co. Rep. 5a, 5a, 77 Eng. Rep. 418 (Exch. 1585); Barrington's Case (Chalke v. Peter), 8 Co. Rep. 136b, 136b–138a, 77 Eng. Rep. 682–84 (C.P. 1610).

247. E.g., Goram v. Fowks, 4 Leon. 150, 74 Eng. Rep. 788 (K.B. 1591); Rooper v. Bulbroke, Noy 149, 74 Eng. Rep. 1111 (K.B. c. 1610); Palmer v. Pope, Hobart 79, 80 Eng. Rep. 229 (C.P. 1611); R. v. Brown, Carthew 398, 399, 90 Eng. Rep. 831 (K.B. 1692).

248. Hopkins v. Stapers, Cro. Eliz. 229, 78 Eng. Rep. 485 (K.B. 1591); Evans v. Thomas, Cro. Jac. 172, 173, 79 Eng. Rep. 151 (K.B. 1607); Moore v. Moore, 1 Bulstr. 169, 80 Eng. Rep. 860 (K.B. 1611); Havergil v. Hare, 3 Bulstr. 250, 252, 81 Eng. Rep. 212 (K.B. 1616); Hitchcock v. Fox, 1 Rolle 68, 69, 81 Eng. Rep. 333 (K.B. 1614); Mires v. Solebay, 2 Mod. 242, 243, 244, 86 Eng. Rep. 1050, 1051 (K.B. 1677); Cramlington v. Evans, 1 Show. K.B. 4, 5, 89 Eng. Rep. 410 (K.B. 1686); Thompson v. Leach, 2 Ventris 198, 203, 86 Eng. Rep. 394; 1 Show. K.B. 296, 89 Eng. Rep. 586 (C.P. 1690); Knight v. Hopper, Skin. 647, 90 Eng. Rep. 290 (K.B. 1695); Evans v. Martrell, 3 Salk. 290, 291, 91 Eng. Rep. 831, 1 Ld. Raym. 271, 91 Eng. Rep. 1078 (K.B. 1697).

249. Goodyer v. Junce, Yelv. 179, 180, 80 Eng. Rep. 119 (K.B. 1610); Wilbraham v. Snow, 1 Mod. 30, 31, 86 Eng. Rep. 708 (K.B. 1670); Ekins v. Smith, T. Raym. 336, 83 Eng. Rep. 175 (Exch. 1678); Brook v. Smith, 1 Salkeld 280, 91 Eng. Rep. 245 (Nisi Prius 1693); Martin v. Wilsford, Carthew 323, 325, 90 Eng. Rep. 791 (Exch. 1694); R. v. Broom, Carthew 398, 399, 90 Eng. Rep. 831 (K.B. 1696); Roberts qui tam v. Weth-erhead, Comberbach 361, 90 Eng. Rep. 528; 1 Salkeld 223, 91 Eng. Rep. 198 (K.B. 1696).

250. Rooke v. Denny, 2 Leon. 192, 193, 74 Eng. Rep. 470 (C.P. 1586); Anon., Cro. Eliz. 685, 78 Eng. Rep. 921 (C.P. 1599); Gumbleton v. Grafton, Cro. Eliz. 781, 78 Eng. Rep. 1012 (K.B. 1600); Bishop v. Montague, Cro. Eliz. 824, 78 Eng. Rep. 1051 (C.P. 1600); Brown v. Wootton, Cro. Jac. 73, 74, 79 Eng. Rep. 63 (K.B. 1605); Greenway v. Baker, Godbolt 193, 78 Eng. Rep. 117 (C.p. 1612); Serviente v. JollifF, Hobart 78, 79, 80 Eng. Rep. 228 (C.P. c. 1615); Radly v. Eglesfield, 1 Ventr. 174, 86 Eng. Rep. 118 (K.B. 1671).

251. Hastings v. Douglas, Cro. Car. 343, 344, 345, 79 Eng. Rep. 902, 903 (K.B. 1634).

252. West v. Stowell, 2 Leon. 154, 74 Eng. Rep. 438 (C.P. 1578); Walker v. Walker, 5 Mod. 13, 87 Eng. Rep. 490; Comberbach 303, 90 Eng. Rep. 492; Holt K.B. 328, 90 Eng. Rep. 1081 (K.B. 1694).

253. E.g., Hare v. Okelie, 1 Leon. 315, 74 Eng. Rep. 286 (C.P. 1578); Tisdale v. Essex, Hobart 34, 35, 80 Eng. Rep. 793 (K.B. 1616); Anon., 1 Leon. 275, 74 Eng. Rep. 250–51 (K.B. 1584); Lewknor v. Ford, 1 Leon. 48, 49, 74 Eng. Rep. 45–46; 4 Leon. 162, 163–65, 225, 227–29, 74 Eng. Rep. 796–97, 838–39; Godbolt 114, 116–18, 78 Eng. Rep. 71–72 (C.P. 1586); Anon., Godbolt 98, 99, 78 Eng. Rep. 61 (C.P. 1586); Chalk v. Peter, Godbolt 167, 168, 78 Eng. Rep. 102 (C.P. 1610); Heydon v. Smith, Godbolt 172, 173, 78 Eng. Rep. 105–6 (C.P. 1610).

254. Dewell v. Sanders, 2 Rolle 30, 31, 81 Eng. Rep. 639 (K.B. 1618) (salmon, sturgeon, doves); Vincent v. Lesney, Cro. Car. 18, 19, 79 Eng. Rep. 621 (C.P. 1625) (hawk); Child v. Greenhill, Cro. Car. 553, 554, 79 Eng. Rep. 1077; March N.R. 48, 49, 82 Eng. Rep. 406 (K.B. 1639) (deer, rabbits, doves, fish); Lister v. Hone, March N.R. 12, 82 Eng. Rep. 389 (K.B. 1639) (hawk); Usher v. Bushnel, T. Raym. 16, 83 Eng. Rep. 9 (K.B. 1661) (pheasant); Mallocke v. Eastly, 3 Lev. 227, 83 Eng. Rep. 663 (C.P. 1685) (deer); Polyxphen v. Crispin, 2 Keble 765, 766, 84 Eng. Rep. 484; 1 Ventr. 22, 23; 86 Eng. Rep. 85 (K.B. 1671) (fish, pheasant); Sutton v. Moody, Comberbach 458, 90 Eng. Rep. 590; 2 Salk. 556, 91 Eng. Rep. 471 (K.B. 1697) (rabbits).

255. E.g., Foster v. Spooner, Cro. Eliz. 17, 17–18, 78 Eng. Rep. 284(CP. 1583); Brent's Case, 2 Leon. 14, 16, 74 Eng. Rep. 320 (C.P. 1575); Finch's Case, 2 Leon. 134, 141, 74 Eng. Rep. 426 (Exch. 1591); Hill v. Haukes, 1 Roll. 44, 45, 81 Eng. Rep. 316 (K.B. 1614); Bowles v. Berrie, 1 Rolle 177, 180, 81 Eng. Rep. 415 (K.B. 1615); Lister v. Hone, March N.R. 12, 82 Eng. Rep. 389 (K.B. 1639); Polyxphen v. Crispin, 2 Keble 765, 766, 84 Eng. Rep. 484 (K.B. 1671); Smith v. Kemp, Carthew 285, 286, 90 Eng. Rep. 769 (K.B. 1693); Coombes v. Hundred of Bradley, 4 Mod. 303, 305, 87 Eng. Rep. 410 (K.B. 1694).

256. E.g., Anon., 2 Leon. 201, 74 Eng. Rep. 478 (K.B. 1586); Coney's Case, Godbolt 122, 123, 78 Eng. Rep. 75 (K.B. 1587).

257. E.g., Luddington v. Amner, Godbolt 26, 27, 78 Eng. Rep. 17 (K.B. 1583); Wood v. Ash, Owen 139, 74 Eng. Rep. 958 (C.P. 1586); Bloss v. Holman, Owen 53, 74 Eng. Rep. 893 (C.P. 1587); Bind v. Plain, Cro. Eliz. 218, 219, 78 Eng. Rep. 474, 475; 1 Leon. 220, 221, 74 Eng. Rep. 203 (K.B. 1591); Price v. Simpson, Cro. Eliz. 718, 719, 78 Eng. Rep. 953 (C.P. 1599); Heydon v. Smith, Godbolt 172, 173, 78 Eng. Rep. 105 (C.P. 1610); Ratcliff v. Davis, Yelv. 178, 80 Eng. Rep. 118; 1 Buist. 29, 30, 80 Eng. Rep. 735 (K.B. 1610); Bowles v. Berrie, 1 Rolle 177, 180–82, 81 Eng. Rep. 415–16 (K.B. 1615).

258. E.g., Luddington v. Amner, Goldbolt 26, 27, 78 Eng. Rep. 17 (K.B. 1583); Anon., 1 Leon. 275, 74 Eng. Rep. 250–51 (K.B. 1584); Anon., 2 Leon. 201, 74 Eng. Rep. 477 (K.B. 1586); Lewknor v. Ford, Godbolt 114, 116, 117, 78 Eng. Rep. 71; 1 Leon. 48, 49, 162, 163–64, 225, 227–29, 74 Eng. Rep. 45, 796–97, 838–39 (C.P. 1586); Wood v. Ash, Godbolt 112, 113, 78 Eng. Rep. 69 (C.P. 1586); Coney's Case, Godbolt 122, 123, 78 Eng. Rep. 75 (K.B. 1587); Shelbury v. Scotsford, Yelv. 23, 24, 80 Eng. Rep. 17 (K.B. 1602); Dowglas v. Kendall, 1 Bulstr. 93, 94–95, 80 Eng Rep. 793–94 (K.B. 1610); Dewell v. Sanders, 2 Rolle 30, 32, 81 Eng. Rep. 640 (K.B. 1618); Hastings v. Douglas, Cro. Car. 343, 345, 79 Eng. Rep. 903 (K.B. 1634); Lister v. Hone, March N.R. 12, 82 Eng. Rep. 389 (K.B. 1639); Wilbraham v. Snow, 1 Lev. 282, 83 Eng. Rep. 408; 1 Mod. 30, 86 Eng. Rep. 708 (K.B. 1670); Sutton v. Moody, Comberbach 458, 90 Eng. Rep. 590; 3 Salk. 290, 91 Eng. Rep. 831; 1 Ld. Raym. 250, 251, 91 Eng. Rep. 1064 (K.B. 1697).

259. Lewknor's Case, 4 Leon. 225, 228, 74 Eng. Rep. 838 (C.P. 1586) (Serjeants Fenner and Walmsley).

260. E.g., Rockwood v. Feasar, Cro. Eliz. 262, 78 Eng. Rep. 517 (K.B. 1591); Smith v. Oxenden, 1 Chan. Cas. 25, 22 Eng. Rep. 676 (Ch. 1663).

261. Brent's Case, 2 Leon. 14, 16, 74 Eng. Rep. 320 (C.P. 1575) (“as clay is in the hands of the potter”); Inchley v. Robinson, 2 Leon. 41, 42, 74 Eng. Rep. 342 (C.R 1587); Ward v. Lambert, Cro. Eliz. 394, 78 Eng. Rep. 639 (C.P. 1593); Soulle v. Gerrard, Cro. Eliz. 525, 78 Eng. Rep. 773–74 (C.P. 1595); Sharpe v. Sharpe, Noy 148, 74 Eng. Rep. 1110 (C.P. 1609). Cf. R. v. Boreston, Noy 158, 160, 74 Eng. Rep. 1120 (Exen. Ch. 1600) (owner cannot make an heir).

262. Hawks v. Mollineux, 1 Leon. 73, 74 Eng. Rep. 69 (C.P. 1587); Fowler v. Dale, Cro. Eliz. 362, 363, 78 Eng. Rep. 612 (C.P. 1594); Gresham v. Ragge, Owen 114, 74 Eng. Rep. 940 (K.B. 1601); Crosse v. Abbot, Noy 14, 74 Eng. Rep. 985 (K.B. 1605); Kendridge v. Pargettor, Noy 130, 74 Eng. Rep. 1093 (K.B. 1608). Cf. Chalk v. Peter, Godbolt 167, 168, 78 Eng. Rep. 102 (C.P. 1610) (owner of the profits may not be the same as owner of the soil).

263. On whether one could have property in a dog, see Trin. 12 Hen. 8, pl. 3, fols. 3–5 (1520); Fines v. Spencer, Dyer 306b, 307a, 73 Eng. Rep. 692 (K.B. 1572); Ireland v. Higgins, Cro. Eliz. 125, 126, 78 Eng. Rep. 383; Hetley 50, 124 Eng. Rep. 334 (K.B. 1588); Chambers v. Workhouse, 3 Salk. 140, 91 Eng. Rep. 739 (C.P. 1692).

264. Barham v. Dennis, Cro. Eliz. 770, 78 Eng. Rep. 1001 (C.P. 1601). Cf. Jenks v. Holford, 1 Vem. 61, 62, 23 Eng. Rep. 312 (Ch. 1682) (a patent providing that no other shall use a new invention may vest a property).

265. Smith v. Brown, 2 Salk. 666, 91 Eng. Rep. 566; 2 Ld. Raym. 1275, 92 Eng. Rep. 338; Holt K.B. 495, 90 Eng. Rep. 1173 (K.B. 1706); Smith v. Gould, 2 Salk. 666, 667, 91 Eng. Rep. 567 (K.B. 1705).

266. Butts v. Penny, 2 Lev. 201, 83 Eng. Rep. 518; 3 Keble 785, 84 Eng. Rep. 1011 (K.B. 1677) (“there could be no property in the person of a man sufficient to maintain trover,” “no property could be in a villein but by compact or conquest,” “no property in the plaintiff more than in villeins”); Smith v. Brown, 2 Salk. 666, 91 Eng. Rep. 566; 2 Ld. Raym. 1275, 92 Eng. Rep. 338; Holt K.B. 495, 90 Eng. Rep. 1173 (K.B. 1706) (“By the common law, no man can have a property in another, but in special cases”).

267. Thomas v. Sorrell, Vaughan 330, 337, 124 Eng. Rep. 1102 (Exch. Ch. 1673).

268. Thomas v. Sorrell, Vaughan 330, 338, 124 Eng. Rep. 1102 (Exch. Ch. 1673).

269. Thomas v. Sorrell, Vaughan 330, 337–38, 124 Eng. Rep. 1102–03 (Exch. Ch. 1673), citing Mich. 11 Hen. 7, pl. 35, fol. 11–12 (1495), and 2 Bracton, supra note 25, at 373 (fol. 132b).

270. Blackstone, supra note 1, at 2.

271. Tawney, supra note 51, at 186–89, 192–93; R.B. Smith, Land and Politics in the England of Henry VII 242–44, 256 (1970).

272. Justice Fitzherbert, in a manuscript report of 1527 uncovered by John Baker, stated: “common law and common reason consider goods, chattels, and money, as highly as land, for many people who do not have lands have goods and money of as great value as land.” 2 The Reports of Sir John Spelman, supra note 65, at 209. See Smith, supra note 270, at 255.

273. See, e.g., 2 The Reports of Sir John Spelman, supra note 65, at 178–80, and sources cited therein.

274. See Dyer, supra note 51, at 51, 110–11; Macfarlane, supra note 51, at 124 – 30; Tawney, supra note 51, at 59–61, 78–80, 90–93.

275. Smith, supra note 270, at 216, 218–19, 221, 253; Buck, supra note 48, at 210.

276. Tawney, supra note 51, at 172, 405.

277. id. at 180–85, 216–17.

278. id. at 240–53.

279. William B. Scott, in Pursuit of Happiness: American Conceptions of Property from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century 6–7, 14–16 (1977); Robert A. Williams, Jr., The American Indian in Western Legal Thought 138–42, 201–5 (1990).

280. See supra, text accompanying notes 213, 225–26; R. v. Bates, 2 State Trials 183 (1610) (Yelverton); Schlatter, supra note 222, at 75–76, 80.

281. Helmholz, supra note 55, at 188–93.

282. See, e.g., Simpson, supra note 49, at 144–47 (ejectment); 7 Holdsworth, W.S., A History of English Law 458 (1937).Google Scholar

283. Statute of Wills, 32 Hen. 8, ch. 1 (1540); see Buck, supra note 48, passim, esp. 212–15.