Definition
Latin. "Because the lord has remitted [or waived] his court." A phrase used in old English practice to describe the situation in which a feudal lord relinquished or waived his right to hold court over a matter — effectively surrendering jurisdiction that would otherwise belong to his manorial or seigniorial court. The phrase functioned as a formal recital or pleading notation explaining why a cause that might ordinarily have been heard in the lord's court was instead proceeding elsewhere, typically in a royal court.
The term is procedural in character: it does not describe a substantive right so much as it records an act of jurisdictional concession by the lord, enabling the matter to pass upward or laterally to a different tribunal.
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Common Confusion
QUIA DOMINUS REMISIT CUR is sometimes encountered in proximity to QUIA EMPTORES in historical indexes and abridgments, owing to their shared Latin prefix and their common feudal context. The two terms are entirely unrelated in function. QUIA EMPTORES is the name given to the Statute of Westminster III (18 Edw. I, c. 1), which prohibited sub-infeudation and restructured the chain of feudal tenure. QUIA DOMINUS REMISIT CUR is a procedural recital describing a lord's waiver of his court — not a statute, not a doctrine of tenure, and not connected to the anti-sub-infeudation policy. Researchers encountering either phrase in a historical source should verify which term is actually present before drawing any interpretive conclusion.
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Why It Matters in Research
This phrase appears almost exclusively in pre-modern English legal materials — plea rolls, Year Books, abridgments, and practice manuals dealing with the structure of feudal courts. Researchers working in those sources need to recognize it as a procedural signal, not a substantive legal rule. When the phrase appears in a pleading or record, it indicates that the jurisdictional foundation for proceeding in the current court rests on the lord's act of remission, not on any inherent competence of the forum.
The practical research trap is misreading the phrase as a term of art with continuing doctrinal significance. By the time systematic law dictionaries were being compiled, the phrase had become largely antiquarian. Bouvier preserves it as a historical item, not as a term in active use. Researchers should therefore treat any appearance of the phrase in post-medieval materials as either quotation, historical reference, or deliberate archaism.
For researchers tracing the history of manorial jurisdiction, seigniorial courts, or the gradual absorption of feudal court functions into royal courts, this phrase is a useful marker. Its presence in a document signals the ongoing vitality — or deliberate invocation — of the lord-court structure at the time of drafting. Cross-reference with materials on LEET courts, courts BARON, and the procedural mechanisms by which royal courts expanded their reach through concepts like ORIGINAL WRIT jurisdiction.
The phrase also has relevance for researchers working on the relationship between private jurisdiction and royal jurisdiction in medieval and early modern England. A lord's remission of his court was one of several recognized pathways by which a case could migrate from seigniorial to royal adjudication without raising a direct challenge to the lord's underlying jurisdictional authority.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's Law Dictionary identifies the phrase tersely as belonging to "old practice" and translates it as "because the lord hath remised or remitted his court." The entry is minimal — a single-line gloss placed adjacent to the QUIA EMPTORES entry, which Bouvier treats at greater length given its statutory significance.
Bouvier does not elaborate on the procedural context in which the phrase was used, the courts in which it appeared, or the consequences of a lord's remission for ongoing proceedings. Researchers should not expect Bouvier to be a complete source here. The entry functions as a recognition signal — enough to identify the phrase when encountered — rather than a doctrinal analysis.
No divergence among historical sources is detectable from available materials, largely because coverage of this phrase in standard reference dictionaries is sparse. The phrase's absence from later legal dictionaries reflects its obsolescence rather than any controversy over its meaning. For deeper treatment, researchers should look to specialized works on medieval English legal procedure and the Year Books directly.
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Jurisdictional Note
This phrase is specific to the English feudal and manorial court system and has no recognized equivalent or application in American legal history. Researchers working in colonial American materials are unlikely to encounter it outside of direct quotation from English sources.
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