The common recovery was an especially strong device for barring entails. Its strength lay not only in its being effective but also in its being easy to use and certain to work. The greater ease and sureness of the recovery becomes apparent when it is compared to other means of barring entails available in the mid-fifteenth century. This chapter explores those other means of barring entails.

To bar an entail meant to prevent anyone with an otherwise good and valid claim under an entail from successfully enforcing his interest under a grant in fee tail. A claimant under an entail who brought an action to enforce his interest might be barred in three ways. First, an heir under an entail might be barred because his ancestor under the entail had granted the land to another with warranty. If the heir under the entail was also that ancestor's heir general, which was frequently the case, the ancestor's warranty would descend to the heir. At common law, the descent of the ancestor's warranty would bar the heir completely from undoing his ancestor's grant. But under De Donis, the heir under the entail was barred only to the extent that lands in fee simple had descended to him from his ancestor. This was the doctrine of assets by descent. Secondly, an ancestor of claimant might have granted or released his right to the land with warranty.