Quia Emptores
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The Statute of Quia Emptores (1290) (Medieval Latin, 'Because the buyer', the opening words of the document) was a statute passed by Edward I of England that prevented tenants from leasing their lands to others through subinfeudation. 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, tenants were able to sub-let land that had been leased to them 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 sub-let, the sub-tenant 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 English civil wars fought by the House of York and House of Lancaster for control of the British Crown from 1455-1485. By the mid-fifteenth century the major nobility, particularly the Houses of York and Lancaster, were able to assemble vast estates, considerable sums of money and large private armies on retainer through post-Quia Emptores land management practices and direct sales of land. The two noble Houses thus grew more powerful than the Crown itself, with the consequent wars between the two Houses for control of the realm. Ultimately the statutes of Quia Emptores and Quo Warranto became the foundation of modern real estate and landlord/tenant relations law.
