Feudal Statistics 87 



paying or owing escuage. Madox in his chapter 

 on Escuage cites (I think) but 4 cases of actual 

 disseisin ; such however was common enough, and 

 no one acquainted with the records of John and 

 Hen. III. will consider amplification needful : it 

 may just be noted that disseisin was not disherison, Disseisin. 

 and often appears to have been a mere formal 

 process of taking possession on account of the un- 

 satisfied claim of the Crown to the tenant's cor- 

 poral service, or its pecuniary unpaid equivalent ; 

 the malevolence of the King being averted, and 

 seisin recovered when the tenant came to terms on 

 the matter. In and prior to Hen. I. forfeiture 

 seems to have been frequent, but the attentive 

 reader of History must have often observed that 

 traitors and rebels by no means necessarily lost 

 their estates (even temporarily), and frequently, 

 having been disinherited, regained them in their 

 own persons (or by their heirs) nor must it be 

 supposed that disseisin* was the inevitable sequence 

 of failure to attend the royal summons (bearing in 

 mind that records do not show that half the Crown 

 capital tenants had usually a direct summons), e.g., 

 P. Writs 30 Ed. I. where Jo./. Reginald is directed 

 to proceed against the Scots, having previously per 

 diversas vices neglected to obey such summons, 

 and again 13 Ed. II. (P. /F.) when the King states 

 that " very many of our realm " who should have 

 done service in the army of }\\^ fourth year, neither 

 did it, nor fined, which is to be compared with the 

 already cited heading in Pipe 1 8 Hen. II., and the 

 nee ierant nee miserunt of Walt. Coventry in 1213. 



* For an early instance of, see p. 105. 



