Statutes of Mortmain - Result of The Statutes of Mortmain

Result of The Statutes of Mortmain

During the reign of Henry III of England, the grant of land to churches was becoming commonplace. Tenants often practiced collusion with churches in order to defeat feudal services. The Great Charter of 1217 contained the first direct provision against this practice:

“It shall not be lawful for anyone henceforth to give his land to any religious house in order to resume it again to hold of the house; nor shall it be lawful for any religious house to accept anyone’s land and to return it to him from whom they received it. If anyone for the future shall give his land in this way to any religious house and be convicted thereof, the gift shall be quashed and the land forfeit to the lord of the fee.”

Several cases recorded where the King specifically forbade the tenant from alienating a church or land held in perpetuity by the Crown, and presumably the equivalent of mortmain. These cases are dated 1164, 1221 and 1227. After 1217, there was a forfeiture of land to the great lord in cases of unauthorized alienation in mortmain. Henry III granted conspicuous favor to the Church and left the proclamations of 1215-1217 largely unenforced. The proscription was reintroduced and made more forcible by Henry III’s son, Edward I in the Statute of Mortmain in 1279.

It was not effective. Land could be still be left to the Church by the mechanism of cestui que use. This is described in the article Cestui que. Henry VII of England expended much energy in the courts trying to break the legal grip of "uses" by Church corporations. The Statute of Uses three centuries after the Statutes of Mortmain would attempt, with only partial success to end the practice of cestui que use. Henry VIII of England would resolve the problem once and for all by disbanding the monasteries and confiscating all church land.