Legal Definitions - de admensuratione dotis

The term de admensuratione dotis refers to a historical legal action, specifically a type of writ, used in English common law.

It allowed an heir, or their guardian if the heir was a minor, to challenge and reduce the amount of "dower" that had been assigned to the deceased ancestor's widow. Dower was the portion of a deceased husband's estate (typically land or its income) that his widow was legally entitled to for her lifetime support. This writ was specifically invoked when the widow had been assigned more dower than she was legally entitled to, particularly if this over-assignment occurred while the rightful heir was still a minor and thus unable to protect their own interests.

Essentially, it was a mechanism to correct an unfair distribution of the estate, ensuring the heir's inheritance was not unduly diminished by an excessive dower assignment to the widow.

Here are some examples illustrating how de admensuratione dotis would have applied:

• Imagine a wealthy landowner, Lord Ashworth, dies, leaving behind his young son, Thomas (age 7), as the sole heir, and his widow, Lady Ashworth. While Thomas is still a child, his appointed guardian oversees the division of the estate. Due to an error or perhaps an oversight, Lady Ashworth is assigned a significantly larger portion of the family's productive farmland as her dower than the law permitted. Years later, when Thomas is 18 and begins to manage his own affairs, his new legal counsel reviews the estate's historical documents and discovers the excessive dower assignment. Thomas, through his legal representatives, could have initiated a writ of de admensuratione dotis to legally reduce Lady Ashworth's dower to its rightful proportion, thereby recovering the excess land for his own inheritance.

• Consider the case of a merchant, Mr. Davies, who passed away, leaving his estate, including several income-generating properties, to his infant daughter, Eleanor, and a dower provision for his wife, Mrs. Davies. During Eleanor's minority, the estate's administrators, perhaps through miscalculation, allocated an overly generous share of the rental income from these properties to Mrs. Davies as her dower. Upon Eleanor reaching adulthood and taking control of her inheritance, she realizes that the ongoing income from her stepmother's dower significantly exceeds the legally mandated one-third share of the estate's total value. Eleanor could have pursued a writ of de admensuratione dotis to rectify this imbalance, ensuring her own financial stability by reducing the dower to its correct legal limit.

• In a medieval manor, Sir Reginald dies, leaving his young grandson, Arthur (age 10), as his heir. Sir Reginald's widow, Lady Eleanor, is assigned her dower by the local court, which includes a substantial portion of the manor's most valuable timberland and fishing rights. Arthur's guardian, a distant cousin, initially agrees to the assignment. However, after a few years, the guardian realizes that the assigned dower far exceeds the customary and legal one-third share of the estate, significantly diminishing the resources available to support the young heir and the manor's operations. The guardian, acting on Arthur's behalf, could have sought a writ of de admensuratione dotis to challenge the excessive assignment and reclaim the surplus timberland and fishing rights for Arthur's inheritance.