Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 10.djvu/364

338 HARVARD LAW REVIEW, this being done at a time when the debtor would be more ready to concede any terms demanded. Until the use of the carta, or written conveyance, became customary, and the process of transfer at a distance from the premises and by carta alone became fre- quent, this embodiment of the atiflassung in the deed of pledge would not be so natural; but towards the end of the Middle Ages it would be the most natural method (except for personal property, in which transfer by document would of course be unusual, and, originally, impossible^) ; and hence, while the judicial cut-off pro- ceedings always remained the usual resort of the pledgee of per- sonal property, the pledgee of real property, by the above period, more frequently attained his purpose by a resignatio clause in his pledge document.^ ^'". Abuse of the resignatio-cdiisG. So far all was well ; the thought of the community was that the pledgee should have his cut-off, and he was allowed to get it either by the judicial proceed- ing or by the deed clause. If the primitive rule as to non-restora- 1 Heusler, II, 201. 2 The forms are innumerable: " [On default, the pledgee] in posterum tria jugera titulo emtionis pleno jure proprietario, cum pleno rerum domino, quod exnunc sicut extunc in eum transferimus, libere possidebit " (Heusler, II, 140); "Si intra hinc et festum . . . non exsolvimus, . , . ipse dominus [pledgee] dicta pignora pro se reti- nendi, ea obligandi, et vendendi, plenam facultatem habebit" (Meibom, 2)Z?)) '■> "[the pledgee] poterit vendere absque ulla prosecutione coram judicio facienda [i. e. without cut-off proceedings]" (Id. 335); A has pledged for seven years; if he can, he may redeem them ; if he cannot then pay back the money, the land " pertinebit in per- petuum" to B (Wodon, 162) ; " Wadiavit . . . salinam . . . usque ad 21 annum; [if unpaid] . • . maneat in monachia sempiterna " (Id. 164); "si infra ipsi jamdicti decern annis completis nos vobis non potuerimus retdere ipsi jamdicti solidi, . . . vos abeatis Integra eadem rebus [described] . . . , ad vestram proprietatem abendum et possiden- dum et faciendum exinde omnia quod vobis placuerit" (Kohler, 87); "[if default occurs,] permaneat ipsam terram supradictam ad R. [pledgee] et cui voluerit post se, in alode et comparato " (Id. 90) ; ** si tunc redempte non fuissent, permansissent usque ad finem mundi " (Id. 91). Just as the judicial permission allowed a re-pledge, as preferable to or optional with a sale (see supra), so the pledgor's permission in the document might do the same : " Daruber gib ich in daz urlaub, ob in sein not geschicht, daz si di vorgenanten heof mit meinem guten willen, swo ich sei sezzen, wenn si mugen oderwellen " (Kohler, 16); and the permission might also cover a sale, instead of a self-appropriation (Kohler, 16, 17). — The difference between the ordinary pledge- clause fixing the time of redemption and the clause of resignatio renouncing all right in advance and giving absolute title contingent on default is clearly to be seen in these two examples ; the first, fixing a pledge period : " per nos tenendam et habendam tam diu donee . . . pro predicta summa . . . redimatur" (Meibom, 279; see also Heusler, II, 138 ; Kohler, 287, 292, 307) ; the next, renouncing in advance all interest: "si nos in solucione negligentes extiterimus, . . . antedictum mansum et curia transibunt in possessionem et dominium sine coittradicHone qualibety suis usibus perpetuo servitura " (Meibom, 261).