Victim of Formality

Pusey v. Pusey (1684), 1 Vern. 273, 23 E.R. 465

Land held by the tenure of a horn. Bill brought by the heir for the horn.

Bill was, that a horn, which time out of mind had gone along with the plaintiff’s estate, and was delivered to his ancestors in ancient time to hold their land by, might be delivered to him; upon which horn was this inscription, *viz. pecote this horn to hold huy thy land.

The defendant answered as to part, and demurred as to other part; and the demurrer was that the plaintiff did not by his bill pretend to be intitled to this horn, either as executor or devisee; nor had he in his bill charged it to be an heir loome.

The demurrer was over-ruled, because the defendant had not fully answered all the particular charges in the bill, and was ordered to pay costs. And the Lord Keeper was of opinion, that if the land was held by the tenure of horn, or cornage, the heir would be well intitled to the horn at law.

“huy” doesn’t make much sense. Probably a typo for “buy”.

See here for a picture of the horn. The full inscription supposedly reads:

I kynge knowde [Cnut] gave Wyllyam Pecote [Pusey, mistranscribed] thys horne to holde by thy land.

Historically, the (eldest male) heir would get the real property, and the widow would get the personal property (chattels). But if you hold the land by virtue of possessing a chattel, what happens then? Apparently the heir gets it, not that the Lord Keeper presented much reasoning.

See also J.H.D., "Pecote": A Bit of Legal Archaeology (1913) 11 Mich. L.R. 506, which claims that Pecote means “bequeath”.

Supposedly this is an important case, showing you can sue in equity for items of “unique value”. I happened to come across it while doing some busy work for the Law Review (yes, people still cite things from the 1690s). The author of the little comment in the Michigan Law Review notes that one scholar thought that an estate holder in cornage was required to blow the horn to warn of impending attack, although another commentator described that explanation as an “idle tale”.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 5th, 2008 at 12:02 pm and is filed under Law. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.