Free Bench

[L. Fr. frank bank; L. Lat. francus bancus, liber bancus, libera sedesJ] In English law. Dower in copyhold lands. 2 Bl. Com. 129.— That estate in copyhold lands which a wife has after the death of her husband, for her dower, according to custom. Kiteh. fol.

102.

Term^s de la ley. This appears to have been from the earliest period, a customary estate, peculiar to certain lands, and held by the widow on the condition of remaining chaste and un« married. Id. Und, Bracton cites a case before Martin [de PateshuU] in the Bench* in the second year of Henry III., in which, to a demand of dower the defendant pleaded that the demandant ought not to have dower, because after the death of her husband she married again; and it is a custom in those parts that the wives of deceased husbands shall have their free bench of the lands of socmen, {consuetudo est inpariibus illis quod uxores maritorum defunciorum habeani francum bancum suum de terris sockmannorum;) and shall hold it as dower for their lives; but if, after the death of their husbands, they married any one, the custom is, in that county, that they shall lose the dower they held in the name of the first husband. Bract, fol.

308 b, 309.

This custom of free bench still prevails in the manors of East and West Enbome, and Chadleworth, in the county of Berks, at Torr, in Devo Dshire, Kilmersdon in Somersetshire, and other places in the west of England.

2 Chitty's Bl. Com. 129, note.

In some places, the widow b entitled to half, and in others, to the whole of the husband's land, or otherwise, according to the custom, but it is always confined to lands of which the husband died seised. Id. ibid. Litt. sect.

166. Co. Litt. 110 b.