Definition
Warrantia chartae (Law Latin: "warranty of charter") was a real action in the common law of England by which a tenant who had been enfeoffed of land under a deed containing a warranty clause, and who was then impleaded in an assize or other action in which he could not resort to the ordinary remedy of vouching the warrantor, could compel the warrantor to step in and defend the title. If the warrantor failed to provide an adequate defense and the tenant ultimately lost the land, the warrantor was liable in damages equal to the value of the land lost. The writ operated as a collateral enforcement mechanism for the covenant of warranty embedded in the original feoffment, running parallel to the main action rather than interrupting it.
The writ is obsolete. It was abolished in England by the Real Property Limitation Act (3 & 4 Will. IV, c. 27, s. 36).
Common Confusion
WARRANTIA CHARTAE versus VOUCHER TO WARRANTY: These two remedies addressed the same underlying obligation — enforcement of a grantor's warranty of title — but operated differently. Voucher was a procedure within an existing real action by which the tenant called the warrantor directly into the pending suit to defend. Warrantia chartae was a separate, independent writ brought when voucher was unavailable, typically because the form of action did not permit it. Researchers encountering historical pleadings should distinguish carefully between these two mechanisms; sources sometimes describe both under the general heading of "warranty" without flagging which procedural route was taken.
Why It Matters in Research
This term appears almost exclusively in pre-modern English property law materials and in American treatises and case law of the colonial and early republican periods that draw on English common law foundations. By the mid-nineteenth century it had vanished from active practice in both England and the American states that had adopted the common law real actions.
Several traps await the researcher:
First, the term is sometimes truncated or anglicized in historical records. Clerks occasionally recorded it as "warranty of charter" in English or omitted the Latin entirely, making keyword searching across manuscript court records unreliable.
Second, the writ's abolition date differs between England and American jurisdictions. England abolished it by statute in 1833. American states that had inherited the common law real actions abolished them at varying times through their own procedural reform legislation, often in the wave of Field Code-style reforms in the 1840s–1860s. A researcher finding a reference to warrantia chartae in an American source must establish the relevant state's procedural history before concluding the action was available or unavailable at the relevant date.
Third, the writ's practical significance lay in its interaction with the doctrine of rebutter and with the recovery of "value of the land" rather than the land itself. In cases where the warrantor was solvent and the land was valuable, this writ could be the decisive instrument in litigation strategy. Treatise discussions of warranty damages in this period often assume familiarity with warrantia chartae as the enforcement vehicle.
Fourth, this term connects directly to the corpus of materials on feudal tenure, feoffment, real actions, and the broader law of covenants of warranty. Researchers working on chains of title in colonial land grants or early American conveyancing disputes will encounter warranty clauses in original deeds whose enforcement would have run through this procedural channel.
Historical Dictionary Support
The four source dictionaries present a coherent and largely consistent account, which is expected given that by the time these dictionaries were compiled the writ was already historical. Black's and Burrill's are nearly identical in formulation, both emphasizing the unavailability of voucher as the triggering condition and the dual remedy of defense assistance or damages. Bouvier adds the practically important detail that the writ was brought by the feoffor pending the first suit — clarifying the timing and confirming the parallel-proceeding structure. Rapalje & Lawrence is the most economical, treating the entry primarily as a cross-reference to voucher and to Blackstone's Commentaries (3 Bl. Com. 300), and noting the abolishing statute precisely.
What the historical dictionaries collectively underplay is the strategic dimension of the writ: the fact that a warrantor who successfully defended the tenant's title was discharged, while one who failed faced a damages liability calibrated to land value, created meaningful litigation incentives. Bouvier begins to gesture at this but the entry is truncated in available sources. Researchers seeking fuller treatment should consult Blackstone's Commentaries Book III and the relevant sections of Co. Litt. on warranty, which provide the doctrinal framework the dictionary entries assume rather than explain.
None of the dictionary entries engage with American practice, which is a meaningful gap: warrantia chartae appears in early American equity and common law pleading materials and its availability (or unavailability) was sometimes litigated in the early American courts before procedural reform statutes rendered the question moot.
Jurisdictional Note
England abolished warrantia chartae by statute in 1833. American states inherited the writ as part of the received common law but abolished it at varying times through their own real-action and procedural reform legislation. No American jurisdiction retained it past the late nineteenth century. Researchers working in colonial or early federal period American materials should not assume uniform availability across states.