These assizes included
issues of novel disseisin [recent ejectment] of a person's free
tenement or of his common of pasture which belonged to his
freehold. Though the petty assize of disseisin only provided a
swift preliminary action to protect possession pending the lengthy
and involved grand assize on the issue of which party had the more
just claim or ultimate right of seisin, the latter action was only
infrequently invoked. The temptation of a strong man to seize a
neighbor's land to reap its profits for a long time until the
neighbor could prove and enforce his right was deterred. Any such
claim of recent dispossession [novel disseisin] had to be made
within three years of the disseisin.
An example of a writ of novel disseisin is: The king to the
sheriff, greeting. N has complained to me that R unjustly and
without a judgment has disseised him of his free tenement in
[Houndsditch] since my last voyage to Normandy. Therefore I
command you that, if N gives you security for prosecuting his
claim, you are to see that the chattels which were taken from the
tenement are restored to it, and that the tenement and the
chattels remain in peace until Sunday after Easter. And meanwhile
you are to see that the tenement is viewed by twelve free and
lawfulmen of the neighborhood, and their names endorsed on this
writ. And summon them by good summoners to be before me or my
justices on the Sunday after Easter, ready to make the
recognition.
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