[419]. Second Institute, p. 16.
[421]. Observations, pp. 8-10.
[422]. E.g. Thomson, Magna Charta, p. 172. Dr. Stubbs has his own reading of maritagium, namely, “the right of bestowing in marriage a feudal dependant.” See Glossary to Sel. Charters, p. 545. The word may sometimes bear this meaning, but not in Magna Carta.
[423]. See his History of English Law, I. 121 (3rd ed.).
[424]. Cf. Ibid. I. 242, where Reeves rightly points out that Coke is mistaken, although he fails to notice the distinction drawn in the passage criticized between the Crown and mesne lords.
[425]. The “unknown charter” (see Appendix) specified sixty days, but Magna Carta fixed the period at forty.
[426]. See Coke, Second Institute, p. 16.
[427]. See Glossary to Select Charters, p. 539: “firewood; originally provision or stuff generally.”
[428]. Several instances of the wider use of the word may be given. Bracton (III. folio 137) explains that, pending the trial of a man accused of felony, his lands and chattels were set aside by the sheriff until it was determined whether they were to become the king’s property by the conviction of the accused; meanwhile the imprisoned man and his family out of the revenue received “reasonable estovers.” (Cf. infra, c. 32.) The Statute of Gloucester (6 Edward I. c. 4) mentions incidentally one method of stipulating for a return from property alienated, viz., to take the grantee bound to provide the grantor in estovers of meat or clothes. (“A trouver estovers en vivre ou en vesture”). Blackstone again (Commentaries, I. 441) applies the name estovers to the alimony or allowance made to a divorced woman "for her support out of the husband’s estate." Sometimes, however, the word was used in a more restricted sense. Coke (Second Institute, p. 17) says, "when estovers are restrained to woods, it signifieth housebote, hedgebote, and ploughbote,"—that is, such timber as was required for repairing houses, hedges, and ploughs. Apparently it had an even more restricted scope when used to describe the right of those who dwelt in the king’s forests, viz., to take dead timber as firewood. (Cf. infra, c. 44.)