[443] Vide Bracton 252. a. et seq.
[444] Vide F.N.B. 433.
[445] This, Lord Coke informs us, was the 20th of October 1154. (2 Inst. 94.) A limitation of between 30 and 40 years.
[446] Vide F.N.B. 434. In this Writ, says Fitzherbert, it sufficeth, if he were seised the day he went out of the Land and took the Sea, although it was not the day of his death. (Ubi supra.)
[447] “Before this Statute,” says Lord Coke, commenting on Mag. Carta, “the Writs of Assise, of Novel Disseisin and Mortdanc’ were returnable either coram rege, or into the Court of Common Pleas: and this appeareth by Glanville—coram me vel coram Justiciariis meis. But, since this Statute, these Writs are returnable, coram Justiciariis nostris ad Assisas cum in partes illas venerint.” (2 Inst. 24.)
[448] Vide Fitz. N.B. 434.
[449] Though the Writs inserted in the three foregoing Chapters appear to be framed with a view to the death of the Demandant’s Father, yet we are not from thence to infer, that the remedy, now under consideration, was confined in its application to the death of a Parent only, since the Ancestor in a Writ of mort d’auncestor was intended of the Father, Mother, Brother, Sister, Uncle, Aunt, Nephew, or Niece of the Demandant. But here it ended. (See Bracton 254. 261. and 2 Inst. 399.)
[450] “The reason why Assises were more expeditious than other remedies, arose from no Essoin being allowed in them”—says Mr. Barrington, (Observations on Ancient Statutes, p. 105.) which, from the text of Glanville, appears evidently to be an inaccuracy, as a general position.
[451] No one of full age was allowed by the Norman Code to prosecute a mort d’auncestor, unless he had purchased his writ within a year and a day after his Ancestor’s death had been publicly proclaimed. (Grand Cust. c. 99.)
[452] See Bracton 274. a. et seq.