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This version of this statute is extracted from the UK Statute Law Database (SLD). It is not in the form in which it was originally enacted but is a revised version, which means that subsequent amendments to the text and other effects are incorporated with annotations.
A STATUTE of our LORD THE KING, concerning the Selling and Buying of Land. The Title Statute d’ni R. de t’ris vendend’ emend’ is in the Margin of the Roll, and of the Vetus Codex at the Tower, fo. 20: On the Close Roll 18 Edw. I. m. 6. d, this Statute is entered with the following Title in the Margin, ’Statute qd null emat tras de aliis tenend qa de capitalibz dnis, &c.’ In the Printed Copies and Translations it is intituled, ’Statutum Westm. iij. The Statute of Westminster the Third, viz. of Quia Emptores Terrarum.’ X1X2
X1This Act is not necessarily in the form in which it has effect in Northern Ireland
X2The original text of this Act was not modern English. The traditional translation appears first with obsolete characters modernised. The original text (as an image) appears second.
FORASMUCH as Purchasers of Lands and Tenements of the Fees of great men and [X1other Lords,] have many times heretofore entered into their Fees, to the prejudice of the Lords, [X2to whom] the Freeholders of such great men (X3) have sold their Lands and Tenements to be holden in Fee (X4) of their Feoffors, and not of the Chief Lords of the Fees, whereby the same Chief Lords have many times lost their Escheats, Marriages, and Wardships of Lands and Tenements belonging to their Fees; which thing seemed very hard and extream unto those [X5Lords and other great men,] and moreover in this case manifest Disheritance: Our Lord the King, in his Parliament at Westminster after Easter, the eighteenth year of his Reign, that is to wit, in the Quinzime of Saint John Baptist, at the instance of the great Men of the Realm, granted, provided, and ordained, That from henceforth it shall be lawful to every Freeman to sell at his own pleasure his Lands and Tenements, or part of them; so that the Feoffee shall hold the same Lands or Tenements of the [X6Chief Lord of the same Fee, by such Service] and Customs as his Feoffor held before.
X1Variant reading of the text noted in The Statutes of the Realm as follows: others
X2Variant reading of the text noted in The Statutes of the Realm as follows: to which Purchasers
X3Variant reading of the text noted in The Statutes of the Realm as follows: and others
X4Variant reading of the text noted in The Statutes of the Realm as follows: to them and their Heirs
X5Variant reading of the text noted in The Statutes of the Realm as follows: great Men and other Lords
X6Variant reading of the text noted in The Statutes of the Realm as follows: same Chief Lord, and by the same Services
AND if he sell any part of such Lands or Tenements to any, the Feoffee shall immediately hold it of the Chief Lord, and shall be forthwith charged with the Services, for so much as pertaineth, or ought to pertain to the said Chief Lord for the same parcel, according to the Quantity of the Land or Tenement [so] sold: And so in this case the same part of the Service [X1shall remain to the Lord, to be taken by the hands of the Feoffee, for the which he ought] to be attendant and answerable to the same Chief Lord, according to the Quantity of the Land or Tenement sold, for the parcel of the Service so due.
X1Variant reading of the text noted in The Statutes of the Realm as follows: shall cease to be taken by the Chief Lord by the hands of the Feoffor, from the time that the Feoffee ought
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F1 And It is to wit, that this Statute extendeth but only to Lands [X2holden] in Fee Simple; and that it extendeth to the time coming; and it shall begin to take effect at the Feast of Saint Andrew the Apostle next coming. [Given the eighteenth year of the Reign of King Edward, Son to King Henry.]
Quia Emptores (1290)