If it should be suggested that what has been said goes to show that the first grantor’s duty to warrant arose from the assign’s becoming his man and owing homage, the answer is that he was not bound unless he had mentioned assigns in his grant, homage or no homage.  In this Bracton is confirmed by all the later authorities. 2

Another rule on which there are vast stores of forgotten learning will show how exactly the fiction fell in with the earlier law.  Only those who were privy in estate with the person to whom the warranty was originally given, could vouch the original warrantor.  Looking back to the early [376] procedure, it will be seen that of course only those in the same chain of title could even mediately get the benefit of a former owner’s warranty.  The ground on which a man was bound to warrant was that he had conveyed the property to the person who summoned him.  Hence a man could summon no one but his grantor, and the successive vouchers came to an end when the last vouchee could not call on another from whom he had bought.  Now when the process was abridged, no persons were made liable to summons who would not have been liable before.  The present owner was allowed to vouch directly those who otherwise would have been indirectly bound to defend his title, but no others.  Hence he could only summon those from whom his grantor derived his title.  But this was equally well expressed in terms of the fiction employed.  In order to vouch, the present owner must have the estate of the person to whom the warranty was made.  As every lawyer knows, the estate does not mean the land.  It means the status or persona in regard to that land formerly sustained by another.  The same word was used in alleging a right by prescription, “that he and those whose estate he hath have for time whereof memory runneth not to the contrary,” &c.; and it will be remembered that the word corresponds to the same requirement of succession there.

To return to Bracton, it must be understood that the description of assigns as quasi heredes is not accidental.  He describes them in that way whenever he has occasion to speak of them.  He even pushes the reasoning drawn from the analogy of inheritance to extremes, and refers to it in countless passages.  For instance:  “It should be noted that of heirs some are true heirs and some quasi [377] heirs, in place of heirs, &c.; true heirs by way of succession quasi heirs, &c. by the form of the gift; such as assigns,” &c. 1

If it should be suggested that Bracton’s language is only a piece of mediaeval scholasticism, there are several answers.  In the first place it is nearly contemporaneous with the first appearance of the right in question.  This is shown by his citing authority for it as for something which might be disputed.  He says, “And that warranty must be made to assigns according to the form of the gift is proved [by a case] in the circuit of W. de Ralegh, about