Definition
A writ in old English practice that lay in favor of the grantee of a reversion or remainder against a particular tenant who refused to attorn — that is, who refused to acknowledge the grantee as the new lord or holder of the superior interest. The writ compelled the tenant to attorn, thereby formally recognizing the transfer and preserving the grantee's feudal and tenurial rights in the land.
The Latin phrase translates literally as "what right he claims," reflecting the writ's procedural purpose: the grantee, having received a reversion or remainder, demands by process of law that the tenant declare (and submit to) the right being asserted over the tenancy. Refusal to attorn was not merely a social slight; it had concrete legal consequences, since the tenurial relationship — with its obligations of service, rent, and loyalty — could not be fully enforced until the tenant acknowledged the new holder.
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Common Confusion
QUID JURIS CLAMAT is sometimes confused in passing reference with QUEM REDDITUM REDDIT, another writ touching the tenurial relationship between landlord and tenant. The two are distinct: quem redditum reddit was directed at a tenant in dower who withheld the rent from a reversioner; quid juris clamat addressed the threshold problem of attornment itself — the refusal to acknowledge the new grantee at all. Researchers should also take care not to conflate this writ with the broader category of writs of right, with which it shares Latin phrasing conventions but not procedural function.
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Why It Matters in Research
This term is functionally obsolete in modern practice. Researchers will encounter it exclusively in historical materials — medieval and early modern English land law, commentary on feudal tenure, and treatises predating the abolition of formal feudal incidents in England (largely accomplished by the Tenures Abolition Act 1660 and completed over subsequent centuries). It will not appear in modern case reporters or statutes.
The attornment requirement it enforced is the critical conceptual thread. Researchers working on the history of landlord-tenant law, the evolution of property transfer doctrine, or the decline of feudal tenure will find quid juris clamat useful as a marker of how rigorously the feudal system policed the acknowledgment of tenurial relationships. The writ illustrates that a bare conveyance of a reversion or remainder was, in medieval law, insufficient to bind a sitting tenant — affirmative submission was required.
In Law Mind corpus sources, this term appears in the dictionary tier but not in case law or statutory materials. Its primary research value is definitional and contextual: encountering the phrase in a primary historical source signals that the dispute involves a tenant's refusal to attorn following a transfer of the superior interest, not a dispute about the underlying title itself. That distinction matters when indexing or analyzing historical land records, pleadings, or writs in manuscript collections.
The identical wording across Black's 1st and 2nd editions and Burrill suggests that by the time these dictionaries were compiled, the writ was already a historical artifact — preserved for completeness rather than active use.
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Historical Dictionary Support
All three source dictionaries agree precisely on the substance: a writ for the grantee of a reversion or remainder against a tenant refusing to attorn, for the purpose of compelling attornment. Black's 1st and 2nd editions reproduce the definition verbatim, with citation to Termes de la Ley and Cowell. Burrill adds the Latin translation ("What right he claims") and confirms the same sources, providing marginally more interpretive context than Black's.
None of the three dictionaries elaborate on the writ's procedure, the consequences of successful or unsuccessful use, or its relationship to related writs. This is consistent with the treatment of obsolete English practice writs generally — the dictionaries record their existence and bare function without guidance on how they operated in practice. Researchers needing procedural depth must look beyond these sources to Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium or Blackstone's Commentaries for fuller treatment of the attornment requirement and the writs enforcing it.
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Jurisdictional Note
This writ was a creature of English common law and has no direct American counterpart. American land law largely bypassed the feudal attornment framework, and no American jurisdiction adopted quid juris clamat as a procedural mechanism. Researchers working in American legal history will not encounter the writ in domestic practice but may find it referenced in early treatises drawing on English common law sources.
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