ABSTRACT

When widows claimed dower they were normally claiming part of the lands which their husband had possessed during their marriage. But the medieval common law also allowed widows to claim lands which the husband had never held if they had been in the possession of a close relative of the husband at the time of the marriage provided the relative had been present at the marriage and given consent to the endowment made by his or her heir apparent. This paper analyses the sixty or so actions of dower ex assensu found on the plea rolls for the period down to 1307 and in associated law reports. That assent was recorded in a written charter in relatively few cases. In most the court relied in part or in whole on the evidence of witnesses present at the ceremony. Sometimes their evidence alone was decisive. More commonly witnesses were added to a jury which gave a collective verdict on whether consent had been given. These cases provide a valuable reminder that witness evidence was already in the thirteenth century a regular and accepted feature of at least one form of common law action.

摘要

寡妇索取嫁妆时，通常是索取丈夫在婚姻期间拥有的部分土地。但是中世纪的普通法也允许寡妇要求丈夫从未拥有的土地，前提是他们在结婚时由丈夫的近亲占有，前提是该亲属在婚礼时在场并同意他或她的继承人作出的捐赠。这篇论文分析了dower ex assensu的六十个左右的动作。在长达 1307 年的辩诉卷和相关法律报告中找到。在相对较少的情况下，这种同意被记录在书面章程中。大多数情况下，法庭部分或全部依赖出席仪式的证人的证词。有时，仅凭他们的证据就具有决定性意义。更常见的是，在陪审团中增加了证人，该陪审团就是否已给予同意作出集体裁决。这些案例提供了一个有价值的提醒，即证人证据在 13 世纪已经是至少一种普通法诉讼形式的常规和公认特征。