When were eviction laws created?
<p>Originally, eviction was handled as a normal civil tort. That means feudal lords killing each other over land or whatever practical outcome.</p>
<p>At some point there was created a formal eviction process with laws, procedure etc. When did this happen?</p>
<p>Just using Virginia as an example most of our laws were made around 1900 to 1950 so I'm guessing the eviction process was created somewhere in that time.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The legislation of the Colony of Virginia was not even officially published for the first 175 years of its lawmaking history</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>the 1910s Virginia faced much the same dilemma it would face in the 1940s: an aging Code of 1887, with no official revi- sion for nearly 30 years and a structure straining under the weight of added legislation</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Also, other states like NY lacked even basic process, like an appelate system so I doubt they were getting into petty civil issues before 1850.</p>
<p>London didn't have metropolitan government until 1889. France introduced the concept of tenant rights in 1948.</p>

<p>England's system of property laws didn't really contain a recognizable analog to a modern short term landlord-tenant relationship <a href="https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1607&amp;context=clevstlrev" rel="nofollow noreferrer">until the late 17th century</a>, because modern alienable, inheritable, legally protected land ownership really wasn't a well developed concept until then, although institutions somewhere between leases and mortgaged existed early and would have entitled an eviction-like remedy.</p>
<p>In Europe, this would generally have been codified when <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_code#History" rel="nofollow noreferrer">the country adopted its first civil code</a>, in the very late 1700s and in the 1800s.</p>
<p>In the U.S., it would have been no later than the adoption of the one of the first and most influential comprehensive codified set of rules of civil procedure in the U.S., the <a href="https://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Field+Code+of+New+York#:%7E:text=The%20first%20code%20of%20Civil,enacted%20by%20the%20state%20legislature." rel="nofollow noreferrer">Field Code of New York State</a> (named after its principal author, David Dudley Field), in 1848. But piecemeal statutes or ordinances or rules to this effect are much older, probably dating back to at least the early modern period in Europe (i.e. 16th century and later), and in the Colonial era in parts of the Americas including what would become the United States.</p>
<p>For the most part, this would have coincided with the abolition or declining importance of feudalism, and the disappearance of a class of serfs. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/history-of-Europe/Landlords-and-peasants" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Britannica asserts</a> that this transition started to take place in Europe the 16th century. This kind of piecemeal legislation is almost as old as the oldest leases in places that had either literate regularized courts or legislative bodies.</p>
<p>In what is now New York State, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_Law_in_Colonial_New_York" rel="nofollow noreferrer">during the Colonial era</a>, the transition from manorialism and a system of tenancy at will maintained by self-help actions of the landlord, to more modern property right creating lease arrangements started in the 17th century and had fully come to fruition around the time of the American revolution. This thrived in an environment in which a flood of petty litigation in county courts was commonplace and handled matters of general governance as well as litigation of disputes. Litigation over possession of land in organized rule governed civil litigation was common in the late 17th century and 18th century in Colonial America according to Lawrence M. Friedman, &quot;A History of American Law&quot; (1985).</p>
<p>There were legislative provisions like this earlier in more urbanized areas in the Iron Age, <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2438228" rel="nofollow noreferrer">such as the Roman Empire</a>, that were abrogated when civilization collapsed in areas where the Roman Empire fell, and with it, rule of law and state entities that were anything other than the personal property of a monarch.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Originally, eviction was handled as a normal civil tort. That means
feudal lords killing each other over land or whatever practical
outcome.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is not what a civil tort is, let alone &quot;normal&quot; civil tort law. There were trials by combat to resolve some kinds property ownership disputes between lords and also non-aristocratic private land owners in medieval England (there is a whole economics literature about that era, see, e.g., <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jla/article/3/1/341/857953" rel="nofollow noreferrer">here</a>), but there is no sense in which this could be fairly characterized as &quot;tort law&quot;.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Just using Virginia as an example most of our laws were made around
1900 to 1950 so I'm guessing the eviction process was created
somewhere in that time.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is almost surely incorrect. Most likely, Virginia recodified its laws at this time, but Virginia had plenty of laws on the books and procedural rules <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2947233?seq=1" rel="nofollow noreferrer">in the Colonial era</a> (see also <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Court_of_Virginia_(colonial)" rel="nofollow noreferrer">here</a>) before it was even a part of the United States of America.</p>
<p>Eviction law far predates the formation of organized police forces or municipal governments, or any governmentally recognized &quot;tenant's rights&quot; beyond possession if the landlord was paid.</p>

virginia