Talk:Quia Emptores

Confusing and badly-written

Take for example the following paragraphs:

"The process of escheat was affected by Quia Emptores. In Glanvill's day, there was an occasional mention of ultimus heres; the land escheats (excadere) to the lord in the absence of a clear tenant heir. If a tenant was outlawed or convicted of a felony the King could exercise the ancient right of wasting the criminal's land for a year and a day. After that, the land returned to the lord. There was a distinction between felony and treason. One guilty of treason forfeited all lands to the King. John and his heirs frequently insisted on seizing terrae Normannorum, "lands of the Normans", the English land of those who preferred to be Frenchmen rather than Englishmen when the victories of Philip Augustus forced a proclamation of allegiance. Frequently, disavowal of a feudal bond was considered a felony. In this, the lords could escheat land from those who refused to be true to their feudal services. On the other hand, there were tenants who were sluggish in performing their duties, while not being outright rebellious against the lord. Remedies in the courts against this sort of thing, even in Bracton's day, were available. But they were considered laborious, and frequently ineffectual in compelling the desired performance. The commonest mechanism would be distraint, also called distress (districtio): the lord would seize some chattel, and hold it until performance was achieved. This practice had been dealt with in the 1267 Statute of Marlborough. Even so, it remained the most common extrajudicial method applied by the lords at the time of Quia Emptores.

"Expulsion of tenants from the land for failure to perform was always a difficult idea, and usually necessitated a lengthy court battle. The lord who escheated could not profit from the land, and had to hold it open for the tenant who could fulfill the obligation at a future date. Quia Emptores laid out, with some definition which had previously been lacking in the issue of tenures. In a sense, the old stereotypes were locked in place. Every feoffment made by a new tenant could not be in frankalmoign, since the donee was a layman; it would be reckoned by the laws of socage. Socage grew at the expense of frankalmoign. Subinfeudation was ended. The tenant in chief could not alienate without the license of the King. Petty serjeanty came to be treated as "socage in effect".[10]"

After reading all that, I have no idea how the process of escheat was "affected by Quia Emptores". It jumps from subject to subject in a disorganized way. Count Truthstein (talk) 15:59, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Inadequate References

Notes such as "3 Whart. Pa 357" for "Cuthbert v. Kuhn" are inadequate to identify the case without substantial research on the part of the reader unless s/he is a law professional with access to historical materials. It appears likely that the court report identified here as "Whart." was written by Thomas I. Wharton, who is the author of a work in the Stanford University Libraries catalog that "Covers cases from Dec. term, 1835 - Mar. term, 1841." The Stanford catalog record also says under TITLE VARIATION: "Cited as: Whart". Altho this library catalog is open, I don't have access to a law library to look up that book (or others Wharton might have compiled), to confirm the citation of the case. A similar catalog entry at another library indicates Wharton's middle name was Isaac and that this publication consists of 6 volumes. - Inkwzitv (talk) 20:07, 28 October 2018 (UTC)