[406]. See Rotuli de Oblatis et Finibus, p. 37, and Pipe Roll, 2 John, cited by Madox, I. 515.
[407]. Pipe Roll, 4 John, cited by Madox, I. 324.
[408]. See infra, c. 59.
[409]. 20 Henry III. c. 6.
[410]. Tenures, II. iv. s. 109.
[411]. See Petition of Barons (Sel. Charters, 383). Gradually the conception of disparagement was expanded, partly from the natural development of legal principles and partly from the increased power the nobility obtained of enforcing their own definitions upon the king. Coke commenting on Littleton (Section 107) mentions four kinds of disparagements: (1) propter vitium animi, e.g. lunatics and others of unsound mind; (2) propter vitium sanguinis, villeins, burgesses, sons of attainted persons, bastards, aliens, or children of aliens; (3) propter vitium corporis, as those who had lost a limb or were diseased or impotent; and (4) propter jacturam privilegii, or such a marriage as would involve loss of “benefit of clergy.” The last clause had no possible connection with the law as it stood in the thirteenth century, but was founded on the fact that marriage with a widow or widower was deemed by the Church in later days an act of bigamy, and therefore involved loss of the benefit of clergy, until this was remedied by the Statute 1 Edward VI. c. 12 (sect. 16).
[412]. II. folio 88.
[413]. For further information on the age at which marriage could be tendered to a ward, and the penalties for refusing, see Thomson, Magna Charta, pp. 170-1.
CHAPTER SEVEN.
Vidua post mortem mariti sui statim et sine difficultate habeat maritagium et hereditatem suam, nec aliquid det pro dote sua, vel pro maritagio suo, vel hereditate sua quam hereditatem maritus suus et ipsa tenuerint die obitus ipsius mariti, et maneat in domo mariti sui per quadraginta dies post mortem ipsius, infra quos assignetur ei dos sua.