Manor - Effect of Quia Emptores

Effect of Quia Emptores

The effect of the statute of Quia Emptores (1290) was to make the creation of manors henceforward impossible, inasmuch as it enacted "that upon all sales and feoffments of land the feoffee shall hold the same, not of his immediate feoffor, but of the chief lord of the fee of whom such feoffor himself held it". The statute did not apply to a tenant-in-chief of the king, who might have alienated his land under a license. Accordingly it is assumed that all existing manors are "of a date prior to the statute of Quia Emptores except perhaps some which may have been created by the king's tenants-in-chief with license from the crown". When a great baron had granted out smaller manors to others, the seignory of the superior baron was frequently termed an honour.