There were also two great statutes bearing almost entirely upon the feudal relations of landed proprietors. The first was the statute of “Quia Emptores” (1290), which forbad subinfeudation and the formation of new manors. Its original object was to prevent feudal lords from being defrauded of their dues. Henceforward, property alienated ceased to belong in any sense to the subordinate grantor, and returned to the property of the lord superior of the whole estate. The effect, unforeseen by the enacters, was to increase the number of independent gentry holding immediately from the crown or from the great lords. The second statute is known by the name of the Second Statute of Westminster, or “De donis conditionalibus.” When an estate had been given to a man and to his children, it had hitherto been held sufficient that the child should be born. The estate had then become the absolute property of the man to whom it had been granted, and he could alienate it at his will. It was now enacted that he had but a life interest in it, that if his children were not living at his death, it reverted to the original grantor. Thus was established the power of entail. There remains one great statute to be mentioned, the Statute of Mortmain. This was aimed against the increasing power and wealth of the Church, and against a legal trick by which laymen had freed themselves from feudal liabilities. It had become a custom to give property to the Church and to receive it back as tenant of the Church, thus freed from obligation to lay superiors. At the same time, even though this device was not used, the accumulation of property in the hands of the Church withdrew it from many feudal duties. It passed, it was said, “in mortuam manum”--into a dead hand. All transactions by which lands or tenements could in any way pass into mortmain were now forbidden. The same spirit which produced these laws had been felt in the administration of justice, where the three courts of Exchequer, King’s Bench and Common Pleas were finally separated, and each provided with a full staff of officials. Even from this short sketch of the work of Edward I. may be gathered the great constitutional importance of the reign. EDWARD II. 1307-1327. Born 1284 = Isabella of France. | +-----------+------------+--+-----------------+ | | | | Edward III. John, Earl of Joan = David II. Eleanor = Duke of Cornwall. Gueldres. CONTEMPORARY PRINCES.