Note 462 — Chapter XIII · CONFISCATION.

Innoc. PP. III. Regest. XII. 154 (Cap. 20 Extra v. xl.).—Isambert, Anc. Loix Françaises I. 228, 232.—Harduin. VII. 203-8.—Vaissette, III. Pr. 385.—Concil. Albiens. ann. 1254 c. 26.—Innoc. PP. IV. Bull. Cum fratres, ann. 1252 (Mag. Bull. Roman. I. 90).

Confiscation was an ordinary resource of mediæval law. In England, from the time of Alfred, property, as well as life, was forfeited for treason (Alfred’s Dooms 4—Thorpe I. 63), a penalty which, remained until 1870 (Low and Pulling’s Dictionary of English History, p. 469). In France murder, false-witness, treachery, homicide, and rape were all punished with death and confiscation (Beaumanoir, Coutumes du Beauvoisis XXX. 2-5). By the German feudal law the fief might be forfeited for a vast number of offences, but the distinction was drawn that, if the offence was against the lord, the fief reverted to him; if simply a crime, it descended to the heirs (Feudor. Lib. I. Tit. xxiii.-iv.). In Navarre, confiscation formed part of the penalties of suicide, murder, treason, and even of blows or wounds inflicted where the queen or royal children were dwelling. There is a case in which confiscation was enforced on a man because he struck another at Olite, which was within a league of Tafalla, where the queen chanced to be staying at the time (G.B. de Lagrèze, La Navarre Française II. 335).