and when a command is given to do the specified act complained of, it always may be laid as the act of the party giving the order.[1]
When I come to investigate the true history of this part of the law, notwithstanding the likelihood which I have pointed out that it was a continuation and development of what I have traced in one or both of the parent systems, I must admit that I am met with a difficulty. Even in Bracton, who writes under the full influence of the Roman law, I have failed to find any passage which distinctly asserts the civil liability of masters for their servants' torts, apart from command or ratification. There is one text, to be sure, which seems corrupt as it stands and which could be amended by conjecture so as to assert it. But as the best manuscripts in Lincoln's Inn substantially confirm the printed reading, conjecture would be out of place.[2]
On the other hand, I do find an institution which may or may not have been connected with the Anglo-Saxon laws touching the responsibility of masters, but which, at any rate, equally connects liability of a different sort with family headship.
At about the time of the Conquest, what was known as the Frithborh, or frankpledge, was either introduced or grew greatly in importance. Among other things, the master was made the pledge of his servants, to hand them over to justice or to pay the fine himself.
"Omnes qui servientes habent, eorum sint francplegii," was the requirement of William's laws. Bracton quotes the similar provisions of Edward the Confessor, and also says that in some counties a man is held to answer for the members of his family.[3] This quasi-criminal liability of master for man is found as late as Edward II. alongside of the other rules of frankpledge, with which this discussion is not concerned. Fitzherbert's Abridgment[4] reads as follows: "Note that if the servant (serviens) of any lord while in his service (in servicio suo existens) commits a felony and is convicted, although after the felony (the master) has not received him, he is to be amerced, and the reason is because he received him 'in bourgh.'" Bracton, in like manner, says that the master is bound "Emendare" for certain
