contractor would seek relief in a church court and renounce all right to a writ of prohibition. Sometimes the litigant would not receive the decision he wanted in the ecclesiastic court, and then would renounce his pledge, and seek a writ of prohibition from the common law court. Bracton explained that it was a terrible sin to seek a writ of prohibition when one had promised not to seek one. This was a crime that deserved imprisonment. Jurisdiction over such matters, as well as over marriages and wills remained contentious in Bracton's day. Frankalmoign and the writ of prohibition In Bracton's time, the question frequently arose about land held in frankalmoign (land donated to the Church). Writs were common prohibiting Church courts from meddling into the title of land, even if it were to be held in frankalmoign. The question was that of lay fee, which was the equivalent of secular lands, even though it may have been held in free, pure and perpetual alms. Bracton posited that land which is sacred (housing Churches and the like) was within the jurisdiction of the Church. To this could be added lands donated in the form of a dower. A glance of the plea rolls demonstrates them to be covered with writs of prohibitions directed at ecclesiastical judges in a continuous battle over jurisdiction of Church lands. Despite these problems, Pollock and Maitland comment that by the end of the reign of Henry III of England, the royal and church courts functioned in relative harmony, despite certain disputes over jurisdiction. Modern liability traced through Bracton Modern liability can be traced from ancient Anglo-Saxon law through the time of Bracton. From Alfred the Great: "A man acts at his own peril. If a man have a spear over his shoulder, and any man stakes himself upon it, that man will pay the wer but not the wite... if he be accused of wilfulness in the deed, let him clear himself according to the wite, and with that, let the wite abate. And let this be: if the point be three fingers higher than the hindmost part of the shaft; if they both be on the level, the point of the hindmost part of the shaft, be that without danger. If a man leaves his arms about, and another knocks them over so that they kill or injure a man, the owner is liable.