exempt from all these burdens,[1] so the first attempts of tenants to evade feudal burdens were by sham surrenders to religious houses. The tenants received their lands back at a nominal rent, to hold as Church vassals, and thus not only escaped military service, but were exempt from fines and recoveries. By the feudal theory, all land reverted to the "chief lord" at his vassal's death, and had to be recovered by the heir, for which of course the heir had to pay. Sometimes this payment was called "a relief," because it relieved the lord;[2] or a "recovery," because it recovered the land. An ecclesiastical community was a continuous corporation; it never died, so its lands never reverted, and therefore never paid recoveries.
When about one-fourth of the lands of England was held by the Church in frankalmoigne, the exemption of Church lands from military service began to make a serious difference in the number of fighting men liable to be called out for the wars in France, Normandy, or Scotland, especially in France, where for nearly 500 years the kings of England tried to retain their ancient possessions. So in 1279, when Edward I. was conquering Wales, and meditating the conquest of Scotland, he enacted the Statute of Mortmain, or the "Dead Hand."[3]
The object of this, as of all statutes of Mortmain, was to prevent the loss of feudal service by ensuring that land should never be transferred except upon the original conditions, and subject to the original burdens.[4] The Statute of Mortmain did not produce the desired effect
- ↑ The tenure of Church lands was in "frankalmoigne," or "free alms." Tenants in frankalmoigne had only to perform the "three necessities"—to keep up highways, build castles, and repel invasions. When the King wanted money, the clergy gave him so much in the £ of their revenues, taxing themselves separately from the rest of the kingdom.
- ↑ "The relief on a knight's fee was £5, or one quarter of the supposed value of the land; but a soccage relief is one year's rent."—Blackstone.
- ↑ "For that a dead hand yieldeth no service."
- ↑ This was not the first statute of Mortmain; there was another in 9 Henry III. (1225). It said that "religious men" could not acquire land from a tenant without the consent of the chief lord. The Statute of 1279 enacted that land transferred except on the original conditions of service should revert to the lord; or to the King himself, if the lord were "negligent," and did not resume possession within one year.
