1290 in Law - Quia Emptores (Paperback)

Purchase includes free access to book updates online and a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Quia Emptores (medieval Latin for "because the buyers", the incipit of the document) was a statute passed in 1290 by Edward I of England that prevented tenants from alienating their lands to others by subinfeudation, instead requiring all tenants wishing to alienate their land to do so by substitution. Quia Emptores, along with its companion statute of Quo Warranto, was intended to remedy land ownership disputes and consequent financial difficulties that had resulted from the decline of the traditional feudal system during the High Middle Ages. As there had been no survey of land titles since the Domesday Book of William the Conqueror in 1086, outright title to land had become seriously clouded in many cases and was often in dispute. Furthermore, free tenants were able to grant away their land such that the Lords who held outright title of such land did not have any power over the sub-tenant to collect taxes or enforce feudal duties, a practice known as alienation. Quia Emptores mandated that when land was alienated, the grantee was required to assume all tax and feudal obligations of the original tenant, known as substitution. By effectively ending the practice of subinfeudation, Quia Emptores hastened the end of feudalism per se in England, which again had already been on the decline for quite some time. Cash rents and outright sales of land increasingly took the place of direct feudal obligations that had been made impractical and outmoded by Quia Emptores. This gave rise to the practice of livery and maintenance or bastard feudalism, the retention and control by the nobility of land, money, soldiers and servants via direct salaries, land sales and rent payments. Such in turn was one of the underlying causes of the Wars of the Roses, the ... More: http://booksllc.net/?id=1637544