I shall not dwell upon the event most frequently quoted with reference
to the era of the Plantagenets--I mean King John's "Magna Charta." It
was more social than territorial, and tended to limit the power of the
Crown, and to increase that of the barons. The Plantagenets had not
begun to call Commons to the House of Lords. The issue of writs was
confined to those who were barons-by-tenure, the PATRICIANS of the
Norman period. The creation of NOBLES was the invention of a later age.
The baron feasted in his hall, while the slave grovelled in his cabin.
Bracton, the famous lawyer of the time of Henry III., says: "All the
goods a slave acquired belonged to his master, who could take them from
him whenever he pleased," therefore a man could not purchase his own
freedom. "In the same year, 1283," says the Annals of Dunstable, "we
sold our slave by birth, William Fyke, and all his family, and received
one mark from the buyer." The only hope for the slave was, to try and
get into one of the walled towns, when he became free. Until the Wars of
the Roses, these serfs were greatly harassed by their owners.
In the reign of Edward I., efforts were made to prevent the alienation
of land by those who received it from the Norman sovereigns. The statute
of mortmain was passed to restrain the giving of lands to the Church,
the statute DE DONIS to prevent alienation to laymen. The former
declares:
"That whereas religious men had entered into the fees of other men,
without license and will of the chief lord, and sometimes appropriating
and buying, and sometimes receiving them of gift of others, whereby the
services that are due of such fee, and which, in the beginning, were
provided for the defence of the realm, are wrongfully withdrawn, and the
chief lord do lose the escheats of the same (the primer seizin on
each life that dropped); it therefore enacts: That any such lands were
forfeited to the lord of the fee; and if he did not take it within
twelve months, it should be forfeited to the king, who shall enfeoff
other therein by certain services to be done for us for the defence of
the realm."
Another act, the 6th Edward I., cap. 3, provides:
"That alienation by the tenant in courtesy was void, and the heir was
entitled to succeed to his mother's property, notwithstanding the act of
his father."
The 13th Edward I., cap. 41, enacts:
"That if the abbot, priors, and keepers of hospitals, and other
religious houses, aliened their land they should be seized upon by the
king."
The 13th Edward I., cap. 1, DE DONIS conditionalitiis, provided:
"That tenements given to a man, and the heirs of his body, should, at
all events, go to the issue, if there were any; or, if there were none,
should revert to the donor."
But while the fiefs of the Crown were forbidden to alien their lands,
the FREEMEN, whose lands were Odhal (noble) and of Saxon descent, the
inheritance of which was guaranteed to them by 55 William I. (ANTE, p.
13), were empowered to sell their estates by the statute called QUIA
EMPTORES (6 Edward I.). It enacts:
"That from henceforth it shall be lawful to every FREEMEN to sell, at
his own pleasure, his lands and tenements, or part of them: so that the
feoffee shall hold the same lands and tenements of the chief lord of the
fee by such customs as his feoffee held before."
The scope of these laws was altered in the reign of Edward III. That
monarch, in view of his intended invasion of France, secured the
adhesion of the landowners, by giving them power to raise money upon and
alien their estates. The permission was as follows, 1 Edward III., cap.
12:
"Whereas divers people of the realm complain themselves to be grieved
because that lands and tenements which be holden of the king in chief,
and aliened without license, have been seized into the king's hand, and
holden as forfeit: (2.) The king shall not hold them as forfeit in such
case, but will and grant from henceforth of such lands and tenements
so aliened, there shall be reasonable fine taken in chancery by due
process."