n of an heir's land for a year or, in
lieu of this, to take one year's profit from the land in addition
to the relief.)

Kinsmen of a minor heir who have custody of his land held in
socage shall make no waste, sale, nor destruction of the
inheritance and shall answer to the heir when he comes of age for
the issues of the land, except for the reasonable costs of these
guardians.

No lord may distrain any of his tenants. No one may drive animals
taken by distraint out of the county where they have been taken.

"Farmers during their terms, shall not make waste, sale, nor exile
of house, woods, and men, nor of any thing else belonging to the
tenements which they have to farm".

Church law required that planned marriages be publicly announced
by the priest so that any impediment could be made known. If a
marriage was clandestine or both parties knew of an impediment, or
it was within the prohibited degrees of consanguinity, the
children would be illegitimate. According to church rules, a man
could bequeath his personal property subject to certain family
rights. These were that if only the wife survived, she received
half the property. Similarly, if children survived, but no wife,
they received half the property. When the wife and children
survived, each party received one third. The church hoped that the
remaining fraction would go to the church as a reward for praying
for the deceased's soul. It taught that dying without a will was
sinful. Adults were to confess their sins at least yearly to their
parish priest, which confession would be confidential.

Henry de Bracton, a royal justice and the last great
ecclesiastical attorney, wrote an unfinished treatise: A Tract on
the Laws and Customs of England, systematizing and organizing the
law of the court rolls with definitions and general concepts and
describing court practice and procedure. It was influenced by his
knowledge of Roman legal concepts, such as res judicata, and by
his own opinions, such as that the law should go from precedent to
precedent. He also argued that the will and intent to injure was
the essence of murder, so that neither an infant nor a madman
should be held liable for such and that degrees of punishment
should vary with the level of moral guilt in a killing. He thought
the deodand to be unreasonable.

Bracton defines the requirements of a valid and effective gift as:
"It must be complete and absolute, free and uncoerced, extorted
neither by