What is "quare impedit"

In English law, quare impedit was "a writ by which a common-law action for deciding a disputed right of presentation to a benefice begins". It was typically brought by a patron against a bishop who refuses to appoint the patron's nominee as a priest.

It obtained its name from the words of the ancient writ that started the proceeding until the 19th century. This writ was directed to the sheriff, instructing him to command the defendant to permit the plaintiff to present an appropriate candidate, or else to show "why he hinders" the plaintiff in the exercise of his rights. The writ of quare impedit was one of the few real actions preserved by the Real Property Limitation Act 1833, and survived up to 1860. It was abolished by the Common Law Procedure Act 1860, and proceedings in quare impedit were changed to make them as similar as possible to those in other real actions.

A proceeding of quare impedit was then usually brought against a bishop to try the legality of his refusal to institute a particular clerk. The bishop would need to fully state upon the pleadings the grounds on which he refuses. Quare impedit was peculiarly the remedy of the patron; the nominee's remedy was the proceeding called duplex querela in the ecclesiastical court. The action would not be barred till the expiration of sixty years, or of three successive incumbencies adverse to the plaintiff's right, whichever period was the longer (Real Property Limitation Act, 1833, 29).

Where the patron of a benefice is a Roman Catholic, one of the universities presents in his place (1689, i Will. & Mary, sess. i, c. 29). By 13 Anne c. 13 (1714), during the pendency of a quare impedit to which either of the universities was a party in right of the patron being a Roman Catholic, the court had power to administer an oath for the discovery of any secret trust, and to order the cestui que trust to repeat and subscribe a declaration against transubstantiation. In Scotland the effect of a quare impedit could be attained by action of declarator. In the United States, owing to the difference of ecclesiastical organization, the action was never known.