WARRANTIA

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WARRANTIAAuthored
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Definition
Warrantia is a Latin legal term meaning warranty, warrant, or legal authority. It appears in medieval and early modern legal instruments primarily in two senses: 1. As warranty: A formal undertaking, typically in a deed or conveyance, by which a grantor bound himself and his heirs to defend the grantee's title to the land conveyed. If the grantee were evicted by a superior claimant, the warrantor was obligated to provide equivalent land in exchange. 2. As legal authority or warrant: The lawful basis or authorization by which a person holds an office, exercises a franchise, or claims a privilege. In this sense, warrantia is the root of the phrase quo warranto — literally "by what warrant" — the writ demanding that a person show the legal authority supporting such a claim. The term does not name a freestanding modern doctrine. It is a formal Latin ancestor of warranty and warrant as those terms developed in English common law. ---
Common Confusion
Warrantia as warranty of title and warrantia as legal authority (warrant) are distinct legal concepts that happen to share a common Latin root. Researchers encountering warrantia in a medieval deed are almost certainly dealing with a covenant of title defense. Researchers encountering it in connection with quo warranto proceedings are dealing with a question of governmental or franchised authority. Conflating the two leads to misreading the source document entirely. Context — conveyancing versus pleading — controls which sense applies. Warrantia should also be distinguished from its anglicized descendants warranty and warrant, which diverged substantially in meaning as they were absorbed into modern common law and statutory usage. ---
Why It Matters in Research
Warrantia is primarily a research term rather than an operative modern doctrine. Researchers will encounter it in three contexts, each presenting distinct hazards: First, in medieval land records and early common law pleadings, warrantia appears as a clause in feoffments and other conveyances. Understanding it as a covenant running with the land — obligating the grantor's heirs to defend title and, if necessary, substitute equivalent land — is essential to reading those instruments correctly. The modern equivalent is the warranty covenant in a deed, but the medieval mechanism was more elaborate and had specific procedural consequences in real actions. Second, in the phrase quo warranto, warrantia signals jurisdictional and constitutional questions about the authority underlying an office or franchise. Quo warranto has a continuous history from the Statute of Gloucester (1278) through English common law into American constitutional practice. Researchers tracing the development of governmental accountability, corporate charters, or franchise rights will pass through this term repeatedly. Third, because warrantia appears in sources spanning roughly eight centuries — from Norman-influenced Latin records through Blackstone's era — the term's precise legal weight shifts depending on the period. In early sources, the warranty obligation in land transfer carried significant substantive force. By the time American common law settled, warranty had been partly superseded by statutory forms and the practical importance of the medieval substitution remedy had faded. Researchers working in historical corpora should note that warrantia and warrantum appear interchangeably in some sources. Both are Late Latin forms pointing to the same underlying concept. Neither form has a direct statutory analog in modern American codes; look instead to warranty deed, covenant of seisin, and quo warranto proceedings as the living heirs. ---
Historical Dictionary Support
Anderson's Dictionary of Law provides the essential framing: warrantia as "a warranty" and warrantum as "a warrant; legal authority; a warranty," with quo warranto glossed as the writ by which the crown challenged usurpation of office or franchise. Anderson's entry correctly identifies both branches of the term's meaning and connects them to the writ of right tradition. What Anderson does not address — and what researchers should supplement from Blackstone and Coke — is the full procedural architecture of the medieval warranty covenant in land: the distinction between lineal and collateral warranty, the doctrine of vouching to warranty (calling the warrantor into the action to defend title), and the eventual collapse of those mechanisms as real actions fell into disuse. Those details matter for anyone reading pre-modern conveyances or land records. Anderson's treatment of quo warranto as a writ "in the nature of a writ of right for the king" accurately reflects the English common law tradition, though by the time American law received it, quo warranto had evolved into an information in the nature of quo warranto, a distinction that matters for procedural history research. ---
Jurisdictional Note
Warrantia itself is not a term of operative American law. Its descendants, however, vary jurisdictionally: warranty deed covenants are defined by state statute in most American jurisdictions, and quo warranto proceedings — where they survive — are governed by state procedural codes. Some states have abolished the writ by name while preserving the underlying remedy through other procedural vehicles. ---
Related Terms
Warranty — Warranty of Title — Covenant of Seisin — Quiet Enjoyment — Deed — Feoffment — Quo Warranto — Warrant — Franchise (governmental) — Voucher to Warranty — Collateral Warranty — Lineal Warranty — Warrantum
WARRANTIAmain
Anderson's Dictionary of Law • 1890
Late Lat. A warranty. Warrantum. A warrant; legal authority; a warranty. Quo warranto. By what warrant, or authority. A writ in the nature of a writ of right for the king, against him who claims or usurps any office, franchise, or liberty, to inquire "by what authority" he supports his claim, in order to determine the right. It also lies in case of non-user or mis-user of a franchise: being a writ commanding the defendant to show by what warrant he exercises such franchise, having never had any grant of it, or having forfeited it by neglect or abuse.4 Superseded by "an information in the nature of a quo warranto," which affords a similar remedy. This is properly a criminal proceeding, to oust the usurper and punish him by a fine, but has long been applied to the mere purpose of trying the civil right, seizing the franchise, or ousting the wrongful possessor, the fine being nominal only. Applied to the decision of corporation disputes, without intervention of the prerogative, by 9 Anne (1711), c. 20, which permits such an information to be brought with leave of the court, at the relation of any person (called the relator) desiring to prosecute the same, against any person usurping, intruding into, or unlawfully holding any franchise, or office in any city, borough or town corporate; provides for its speedy determination; and directs that if the defendant be convicted, judgment of ouster (as well as fine) may be given against him, and that the relator shall pay or receive costs according to the event of the suit. The original common-law writ was a civil writ, at the suit of the crown; and the first process was a summons. This writ fell into disuse, and its place was supplied by an "information in the nature of a quo warranto," a criminal method of prosecution. Long before our Revolution, however, it lost its character as a criminal proceeding in every thing except form, and was "applied to the mere purposes of trying the civil right, seizing the franchise, or ousting the wrongful possessor." Such, without legislation, has been its Jerome v. Rio Grande County, 18 F. R. 873 (1883). ? See generally 21 Am. Law Rev. 578-92 (1887), cases. 3 Goldman v. Conway County, 2 McCrary, 327 (1880). 43 Bl. Com. 262; 1 id. 485; 4 id. 312. 3 Bl. Com. 363-64; 12 Fla. 219; 33 Miss. 523; 23 Wend. 537, 591-91; 34 Wis. 197; 25 Mo. 555; 69 Ga. 524. character in many of the States; in others it has been treated as criminal in form.¹ Where it is regarded as a civil action all the evidence required to prove any particular fact is a bare preponderance.2 The judgment may be that the franchise usurped be seized into the sovereign's hands, if it be one which the sovereign can repossess and enjoy, or it may be a judgment of ouster. Strictly, a judgment of seizure or ouster suspends the right to exercise the franchise. The writ may not lie to try the right to an elective office, where remedy by contest of the election is contemplated; 4 nor for an abuse of office that does not amount to a cause of forfeiture. It is the proper remedy for trying the right to a charter, municipal, county, or State office, or an office in a society incorporated for any purpose whatever. Questions as to when the writ will be granted, and in whose name, whether to a private relator, the attorney-general or the district-attorney, the regularity of process, and the pleadings and practice generally, are determined by the law of the particular jurisdiction. Warrantia chartæ. A warranty of deed, or of title. A writ which lay against the warrantor of a title to compel him to assist the tenant with a good plea or defense, or else to render damages and the value of the land, if recovered against the tenant.7 The remedy is now by an action of covenant against the grantor, or his real or personal representatives, to recover compensation in damages for the land lost upon eviction, on the ground of failure of title. 8

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