was where the inferior lords, in imitation of their superiors, began to carve out and grant to others minuter estates than their own, to be held of themselves; and were to proceeding downwards in infinitum, till the superior lords observed, that by this method of subinfeudation they lost all their feudal profits, of wardships, marriages, and echeats, which fell into the hands of these mesne or middle lords, who were the immediate superiors of the terre-tenant, or him who occupied the land. This occasioned the stat. of Wm. 3. or quia emptores, 18 Edw. I. to be made; which directs, that, upon all sales or feoffments of lands, the feoffee shall hold the same, not of his immediate feoffer, but of the chief lord of the fee of whom such feoffer himself held it. And from hence it is held, that all manors existing at this day must have existed by immemorial prescription; or at least ever since the 18 Edw. I. when the statute of quia emptores was made.