Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol II).djvu/146

 134 pecific dotation was made at the church porch, then he was endowed by the common law of the third part (which was called her dos rationabilis) of uch lands and tenements, as the huband was eied of at the time of the epouals, and no other; unles he pecially engaged before the priet to endow her of his future acquiitions : and, if the huband had no lands, an endowment in goods, chattels, or money, at the time of epouals, was a bar of any dower in lands which he afterwards acquired. In king John's magna carta, and the firt charter of Henry III, no mention is made of any alteration of the common law, in repect of the lands ubject to dower: but in thoe of 1217, and 1224, it is particularly provided, that a widow hall be intitled for her dower to the third part of all uch lands as the huband had held in his life time : yet, in cae of a pecific endowment of les ad otium eccleiae, the widow had till no power to waive it after her huband's death. And this continued to be law, during the reigns of Henry III and Edward I. In Henry IV's time it was denied to be law, that a woman can be endowed of her huband's goods and chattels : and, under Edward IV, Littleton lays it down ex- Rh