Note 165 — Book VI.
John Beames translation
It is curious to observe the fluctuations of Law. Though Glanville in the text expressly lays it down, that a Woman may be endowed of chattels, or money, which, indeed, could have been the only mode of endowing in the still more distant ages of Antiquity, yet this was denied to be law in the Reign of Henry the fourth, (7. H. 4. 13. b.) The Doctrine of the Courts of Equity in the present day, in admitting equitable bars, seems, in point of substance, to revive the law as laid down by Glanville. The doctrine of the text is confirmed by the Regiam Majestatem, and Fleta: but the latter informs us, that Dowers, of the kind now under discussion, were only so far to be recovered, as the chattels of the deceased extended. (L. 5. c. 23.) Hence probably they fell into disuse.