The obligation
of warranty was to defend the title, and, if the defence failed,
to give to the evicted owner other land of equal value. If an
ancestor had conveyed lands with warranty, this obligation could
not be fulfilled by his executor, but only by his heir, to whom
his other lands had descended. Conversely as to the benefit of
warranties made to a deceased grantee, his heir was the only
person interested to enforce such warranties, because the land
descended to him. Thus the heir continued to represent his
ancestor in the latter's rights and obligations by way of
warranty, after the executor had relieved him of the debts, just
as before that time he had represented his ancestor in all
respects.
If a man was sued for property which he had bought from another,
the regular course of litigation was for the defendant to summon
in his seller to take charge of the defence, and for him, in
turn, to summon in his, if he had one, and so on until a party
was reached in the chain of title who finally took the burden of
the case upon himself. A contrast which was early stated between
the Lombard and the Roman law existed equally between the
Anglo-Saxon and the Roman. It was said that the Lombard presents
his grantor, the Roman stands in his grantor's
shoes,--Langobardus dat auctorem, Romanus stat loco auctoris.
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