[699]. Is it possible that the origin of “year and waste” can be traced to the difficulty of agreeing on a definition of “real” and “personal” estate respectively? The Crown would claim everything it could as "chattels"—a year’s crops and everything above the ground.
[700]. Second Institute, p. 36.
[701]. See Pollock and Maitland, I. 316. “The apocryphal statute praerogativa regis which may represent the practice of the earlier years of Edward I.” Bracton (folio 129) while stating that the Crown claimed both, seems to doubt the legality of the claim.
[702]. Cf. supra, pp. [244-6].
[703]. Such at least is the most probable explanation of an entry on the Pipe Roll of 6 John (cited Madox, I. 488); although it is possible that Thomas only bought in “the year day and waste.”
[704]. Magna Carta is peculiar in speaking of year and day, without any reference to waste. If it meant to abolish “waste” it ought to have been more explicit. Later records speak of “annum et vastum,” e.g. the Memoranda Roll, 42 Henry III. (cited Madox, I. 315), relates how 60 marks were due as the price of the “year and waste” of a mill, the owner of which had been hanged.
[705]. Pipe Roll, 13 Henry III., cited Madox, I. 347. In Kent, lands held in gavelkind were exempt alike from the lord’s escheat and the king’s waste, according to the maxim “The father to the bough, the son to the plough.” See, e.g. praerogativa regis, c. 16.
[706]. Madox. I. 344-8, cites from the Pipe Rolls many examples.
[707]. This case is cited by Madox, I. 347, from 18 Edward I.