The statute of the 13 Edward I. (Westminster, 2), e. 32, provided against these recoveries of lands obtained by collusion ; for it was enacted, that after the default made, it should be inquired whether the demandant had any right in his demand or not ; and if the demandant were found to have no right, the land was declared to be forfeited to the Ionia mediate and immediate, similarly as was provided by the previous statute of Edward I. Another provision of this statute (e. 33) furnishes curious evidence as to the devices practised for the purpose of eluding the etatutee of mortmain. The words of the enactment will best explain the allusion :—" Forasmuch as many tenants set up crosses or permit them to be set up on their tenements, to the prejudice of their lords, in order that the tenants may defend themselves by the privileges of Tetnplars and Hospitallers against the chief lords of the fees, it is enacted, that such tenements' be forfeited to the chief lords, or to the king, in the same way in which it is enacted elsewhere with respect to tenements alienated in tnortinain" (de tenementis aliena(is ad alortuam manure).
Various other statutes were palmed in the reigns of Edward I. and Edward Ill. relating to mortmain ; but the next important statute is that of the 15 Richard II., e. 5. As corporations could not now acquire lands by purchase, gift, lease, or recovery, they had contrived another new device, said to be mainly the invention of or mainly practised by ecclesiastical bodies or persons. The device consisted in this : the lands in question were conveyed to some and his heirs to the use of the ecclesiastical body or person and their or his successors. In this way the legal estate was not in the poesconion of those who could not legally hold it, but in a person who had such legal capacity ; and the use or profit of the land, the beneficial interest in it, was secured to the ecclesiastical body or per on, contrary to the spirit of the pre vious statutes, though not contrary to their expressed provisions. The statute of Richard, after declaring that this use waa also mort main, further declared all such conveyances to be void, and that the lords might enter on lands so conveyed, in the manner provided for by the statute De Religiosia. This distinction of the ownerehip of land into the legal and beneficial was undoubtedly derived by the clergy from the like distinction in the Roman law between quiritarian and bonitorian ownership, which is briefly and distinctly expressed by Gains (ii. 40).
Though the statute Do Eeligionis was in its terms comprehensive enough to include all alienations to corporate bodies or persons, it is clear that this statute was mainly directed against the clergy, both regular and secular. The ecclesiastical corporations were more nume rous than any other, and had been more active in getting lands into theirhands. This statute of Richard II., however, expressly extends
the slatute De Religiosis to lands purchased to the use of guilds or fraternities, from which it has been inferred that the doctrine of mort main had not, before the date of this statute, applied to guilds or fraternities. The statute De Rcligiosis is by this statute of Richard II. expressly declared to apply also to what we now call municipal corpo rations", and the statute places such bodies in all respects' on the same footing, as to the purchase of lands, with " people of religion." If such bodies as these had been considered within the statute Do Rcligiosis, it seems clear from the statute of Richard II. that their acquisitions of land had only recently become of such magnitude as to make it seem expedient to make a special declaration by statute an to them.
A statute of Henry VIII. (23 Henry VIII., c. 10), commonly called an Act against superstitious uses, is perhaps hardly a statute against mortmain in the strict sense of the term. The statute enacted that feoffments, fines, recoveries, and other estates, made of lands and hereditaments to the use of parish churches, chapels, guilds, fraternities, commonalties, &c., erected and made of devotion or by common consent of the people without any corporation, or to uses for perpetual obits, or a continual service of a priest, were declared to be void as to such gifts as were made after the 1st of March in the year in which the statute was passed, for any term exceeding twenty years from the creation of such uses. From the words " by common consent of the people, without any corporation," it can hardly be inferred that a number of individuals could take in perpetual succession without being incorporated, as some writers suppose ; for "to take by per petual succession without being incorporated" involves a contradiction. Nor can the statute be construed as admitting by implication such a power of perpetual succession in unincorporated individuals. The statute destroys all such estates and interests in land as in any way or by any persons were held to the use of the establishments or collections of individuals mentioned and described in the statute.
The subsequent statutes passed in the reign of Henry VIII. (27 Hen. VIII., c. 28; 31 Hen. VIII., c. 13; 37 Hen. VIII , e. 4), together with the statute passed in the first year of Edward VI. (1 Edw. VI., c. 14), put an end to religious houses and many other establishments which had been the special objects of the statutes of mortmain and superstitious uses. The consideration of what are now legally called superstitious uses properly comes under the head of USES, SUPER. STlTIOCS Citanirants.