Mortmain definitions

môrt'mān'
A legal arrangement in which a property owner such as an ecclesiastical institution is barred from transferring or selling its property.
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A transfer of lands or houses to a corporate body, such as a school, church, or charitable organization, for perpetual ownership.
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Such ownership.
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The permanent holding of lands by an ecclesiastical organization, without the right to dispose of them.
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(law) The perpetual, inalienable possession of lands by a corporation or non-personal entity such as a church.
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(literary) A strong and inalienable possession.
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Origin of mortmain

Middle English mortemayne from Old French mortemain morte feminine of mort dead mortgage main hand (from Latin manus man-2 in Indo-European roots)

Sentence Examples

  • The council is a body corporate, may hold land in mortmain, and can appoint committees for its own parish or jointly with any other parish council.

  • This was St Bernard's College, founded by Chicheley under licence in mortmain in 1437 for Cistercian monks, on the model of Gloucester Hall and Durham College for the southern and northern Benedictines.

  • the tax on property in mortmain, dues for the verification of weights and measures, the tax on royalties from mines, on horses, mules and carriages, on cycles, &c.

  • With regard to the land and the services due therefrom a beginning was made of the policy which culminated in the statutes of Mortmain and of Quia Emptores.

  • The Statute of Mortmain forbade any man to alienate land to the church without royal licence.

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Words near mortmain in the Dictionary