The Magna Carta Project

Article 15

If anyone holding from the king dies, it is to be lawful for the sheriff or other royal bailiff to seize and record his chattels by the view of law-abiding men, as long as none of them are removed, until it is more fully known whether he owes any clear debt to the king; and then when the debt to the king is paid, the residue is to be relinquished to the executors to perform the testament of the deceased; and if nothing is owing to the king then all the chattels are to go to the deceased.

The Articles of the Barons