[397]. Vivarium in strictness means a place for keeping live-stock, but probably included the animals also. By Coke, in the Statutes at large, and elsewhere, it is translated “warren”; but that word has its Latin form in warrena. Stubbs’ Glossary to Select Charters (p. 551) renders it as “a fish pond,” but stagnum has that meaning. The Statute Westminster II. (c. 47) speaks of stagnum molendinæ (a mill-pond). The Statute of Merton (c. 11) refers to poachers taken in parcis et vivariis; while Westminster I. (c. 1) forbids ne courge en autri parks, ne pesche en autri vivers, which suggests a change of connotation. Cf. ibid., c. 20.
[398]. Blackstone, Great Charter, lxxviii. considers this “an indulgence to guardians, by only directing them to deliver up the land ... in as good condition as they found it, not in as good as it would bear.” Sometimes, the heir after coming of age, could not recover his lands at all. The Statute of Marlborough (c. 16) gave such a ward a right to a mort d’ancestor (cf. infra, p. 325) against a mesne lord, but apparently not against the Crown. The Statute of Westminster I. (c. 48) narrates that heirs were often carried off bodily to prevent them raising actions against their guardians.
[399]. See S. R. Gardiner, Documents, p. 207.
[400]. Article 11: see Select Charters, 139.
[401]. Cited by the editors of the Dialogus, p. 223.
[402]. Cf. under c. 43 infra.
[403]. C. 46 (see infra) confirmed barons, who had founded abbeys, in their rights of wardship over them during vacancies.
CHAPTER SIX.
Heredes maritentur absque disparagacione, ita tamen quod, antequam contrahatur matrimonium, ostendatur propinquis de consanguinitate ipsius heredis.