MORTMAIN (ante), the alienation of real estate to a corporation. The term, however, is generally used of religious corporations. In consequence of the feudal restrictions on alienation, a corporation was oblircd to get a mortmain license to make a valid purchase of lands. One of the chief objections to the alienation of land to religious corporations, was the loss to the lord of the fee, of the ordinary feudal profits, such as reliefs, ward ships, and marriages. by the vesting of land in a technical person who cannot die or suffer attaint. The license of the sovereign was necessary, as the lord to whom, in the last resort, the fee would ultimately revert. If there were an intermediate lord between the alienating tenant and the king, his license must also be obtained for the alienation; for want of of such license, the land was forfeitable to the lord, after entrance. Licenses were necessary in Saxon times, and after the conquest. they are recognized in the consti tutions of Clarendon. But the church continued to increase its kinds, in spite of the restriction. The estate alienated without a license reverted, in the first instance, to the immediate lord of the fee. To escape this forfeiture, the tenant made a conveyance to the religious corporation, and then held the land as its tenant; the corporation thus obtained a sufficient seizin, to enable them to enter upon the land as immediate lord, under color of a surrender or forfeiture. By the 36th chapter of Magna Charta, such conveyances were made void. The prohibition in Magna Charta applied to religions houses only, so that religious corporations sole were exempt from its provisions; and the religious houses cyaded it, by that were really holden, of themSelves as lords of the fee.'or by taking long terms for years. To meet these evasions, the statute, 7 Edw. I., De Religiosis, was passed.
The restrictive statutes applied to conveyances between the parties only, and the religious houses evaded them by bringing a suit to recover the land on a pretended title, in collision with the tenant who would] let the suit go by default. This kind of collu
sive snit conie afterwards into general use under the name of a common recovery. The 2d statute of Westminster enacts a prohibition of this evasion, and the statute Quia em stores, permitting free alienation, expressly excepts alienation in mortmain. The next ecclesiastical device was to convey the land to feoffees to the use of the religious henses. The seizin thus remained in the feoffees, who were held by chancery to account for the rents and profits. This was the origin of uses and trusts. The statute 15 Richard II. declares all lands conveyed to the use of ecclesiastical persons, without the license of the king or intermediate lord, to be forfeited. The statute 23 Henry VIII. prohibited the conveyance of land for superstitious uses to non-corporate bodies also. Meanwhile it had always been possible for the crown to grant a mortmain license enabling a cor poration to purchase and hold lands. At the time of the revolution, some doubts were felt in regard to the validity of such license, and by the statutes 7 and 8 1Villi&el III. it was enacted that such license should henceforth be granted by the king, in his discre tion. It is held that the before-mentioned statute of Henry VIII. applies to superstitious and not to charitable uses, so that a bequest to a hospital, for instance, was not voided by it. The mortmain acts have not been re-enacted in the United States except in a very few states; a corporation can hold land, but only it charitable corporation can take by devise. In some states the amount which can be bequeathed to charitable uses is limited by statute; within that limit the devise is good.