Quia Emptores (1290)

I Freeholders may sell their Lands; so that the Feoffee do hold of the Chief Lord. E+W

FORASMUCH as Purchasers of Lands and Tenements of the Fees of great men and [X1 other Lords,] have many times heretofore entered into their Fees, to the prejudice of the Lords, [X2 to 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 [X5 Lords 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 [X6 Chief Lord of the same Fee, by such Service] and Customs as his Feoffor held before.

Editorial Information

X1 Variant reading of the text noted in The Statutes of the Realm as follows: others

X2 Variant reading of the text noted in The Statutes of the Realm as follows: to which Purchasers

X3 Variant reading of the text noted in The Statutes of the Realm as follows: and others

X4 Variant reading of the text noted in The Statutes of the Realm as follows: to them and their Heirs

X5 Variant reading of the text noted in The Statutes of the Realm as follows: great Men and other Lords

X6 Variant reading of the text noted in The Statutes of the Realm as follows: same Chief Lord, and by the same Services