fire at his property. Glanvill also held this opinion. Glanvill held that the bailee was absolutely bound to restore the lost chattel or its value. Bracton appeared to mitigate the old rule. If the bailee had shown due diligence, there was room for mitigation of damages. However, it was never clear how Bracton would decide to proportion damages. Bracton's description has been called Romanesque, and premature. Even by Bracton's time, lawyers were becoming accustomed to the notion that bailees did not have an absolute liability for chattels bailed to their tending, assuming they used reasonable care or diligence in handling them. In Bracton's text, there was the beginning of the notion that bailee had an action for loss, assuming he had some interest in the chattel beyond mere possession. That must be some kind of responsibility for its care and safety. It had not developed very far. Bracton more than once seems to require that the appellor shall complain of a theft of his own goods or of goods for which he has been made responsible, namely, intravit in solutionem erga dominum suum. The time between conveyance and possession was ill-defined. The time of bailee possession was called the custodia or "custody". The bailee had three courses of action: (1) the appeal of larceny; (2) the action of trespass; (3) the action of detinue. Bracton wrote of detinue: The question of ownership and possession From a case in 1292, the following was reported: The question of what was the nature of the action of detinue remained open till the present time. This case illustrates two points. Ownership was key to determining the kind of action to be brought for remedy. Ownership was unclear, and difficult to define at the end of the thirteenth century. Detinue separated from debt Glanvill described one action which had features of both debt and detinue. They were the same. In his time, the form of the writ was a demand for a sum of money which could be issued for various reasons. "Debt" or detinue could be demanded for return of the loan of money, the price of sale, the loan of a chattel, letting to hire, or a deposit. The writ was available for a creditor against a surety on the default of the principal debtor. Glanvill speaks of debt and its writ as being a retrieval of "debt that is due", or detinue.