The Acts here enumerated do not apply to a claim "of a manor, a court lest, a liberty, separate jurisdiction, treasure trove, wreck, waifs, and other forfeitures, fair, market, fishery, toll, park, forest, chase, or any privilege legally known as a franchise, as well as anything per taining to those rights which come under the description of dignities or offices." (Mr. Hewlett's ' Reply, &c., to certain Evidence before the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Records, February, 1830.) The term prescription is derived from the Roman law, but the meaning of the term in the Roman law is different. Blackstone says (ii, c. 17, note f), " This title of prescription was well known in the Roman law by the name of nsucapio (' Dig.; 41, tit. 3, s. 3), so called because a man that gains a title by prescription may be said saw rent repere." This remark is not correct. Usucapio in the Roman Jaw was founded solely on possession as such [PossEssrox), and it applied only to " corporeal things : " " by the Laws of the Twelve Tables usucapion of moveable things was complete in one year; and of land and houses in two years." (Gains, ii. 42.) "To usucapion was afterwards added, as a supplement, the longi temper's pncscriptio, that is, an exceptio (plea) against the rei vindicatio, the conditions of which were nearly the flame as in the case of usucapion." (Savigny, Das )leeht des Besitzes,' p. 6.) The term prsscriptio was properly applied to that which a plaintiff (actor) prefixed (prascripsit) to the formula by which lie made his demand against a defendant, for the purpose of limiting or qualifying his demand. It seems afterwards to have been used as
to exceptio or plea.
Bracton (ii., c. 22) treats of ownership acquired "sine titulo et tra ditione, et per usneaptionem, a. per longam contirmam et pacificam posseesionern ;" but he adds that no time was legally fixed as necessary to make the title perfect, and it depended on the discretion of the justices. It appears, then, that thgrule as to the time of prescription commencing from the 1st of Richard I. (A.D. 1189) was not established at the time when Bracton wrote, which was in the reign of Henry Ill. Bracton observes that " longa possessio," as above defined by him, "sicut jus parit jus possiflendi et tollit actionem vero domino petenti ;" or the actual possession gives in course of time the right to possess. [PossEssfoff.1 In the same chapter he treats of the mode of acquiring posaeasio re' incorporalia, Aleut possesslo juris, viz. alicujus servitutis per paticntiarn flue trahitur ad consensum, et longum mum et tenni. Bracton then makes no distinction between a thing corporeal and incorporeal as to the mode of acquiring right by possession and long usage, nor does lie use the word prescription.
(Comyns, Prescription Viner's Abridgment; Starkie, Law of Ea. deuce; Blackstone, p. 255, Mr. Kerr's ed.)