, and to join in the pursuit and
arrest of criminals.

225. Land Legislation, 1285, 1290.

Two very important statutes were passed during this reign, respecting
the free sale or transfer of land.[1]

[1] These laws may be regarded as the foundation of the English system
of landed property; they completed the feudal claim to the soil
established by William the Conqueror. They are known as the Second
Statute of Westminster (De Donis, or Entail, 1285) and the Third
Statute of Westminster (Quia Emptores, 1290). See S264 and Summary of
Constitutional History in the Appendix, p. xi, S11.

The effect of these statutes was to confine the great estates to the
hands of their owners and direct descendants, or, when land changed
hands, to keep alive the claims of the great lords or the Crown upon
it. These laws rendered it difficult for landholders to evade their
feudal duties to the King (S150) by the sale or subletting of
estates. Hence, while they often built up the strength of the great
families, they also operated to increase the power of the Crown at the
very time when the growing influence of Parliament and the people was
beginning to act as a check upon the royal authority.

226. Legislation respecting the Church; Statute of Mortmain, 1279.

A third enactment checked the undue increase of Church property.
Through gifts and bequests the clergy had become owners of a very
large part of the most fertile soil of the realm. No farms, herds of
cattle, or flocks of sheep compared with theirs. These lands were
said to be in mortmain, or "dead hands"; since the Church, being a
corporation, never let go its hold, but kept its property with the
tenacity of a dead man's grasp.

The clergy constantly strove to get these Church lands exempted from
furnishing soldiers, or paying taxes to the King (S136). Instead of
men or money they offered prayers. Practically, the Crown succeeded
from time to time in compelling them to do considerably more than
this, but seldom without a violent struggle, as in the case of Henry
II and Becket (S165).

On account of these exemptions it had become the practice with many
persons who wished to escape bearing their just share of the support
of the King, to give their lands to the Church, and then receive them
again as tenants of some abbot or bishop. In this way they evaded
their military and pecuniary obligations to the Crown. To put a stop
to this practice, and so make all landed propri