Mortuary
Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence · Benjamin Vaughan Abbott · 1879
Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence
1.
A gift left by a man at his death to his parish church, for the recompense of his personal titlies and offerings not duly paid in his lifetime.
2.
A kind of ecclesiastical heriot, being a customary gift claimed by and due to the minister in very many parishes, on the death of his parishioners. Like lay heriots, they were originally but voluntary tiequests to the church. It was usual, in ancient times, to bring the mortuary to church along with the corpse when it was brought to be buried, and thence it is sometimes called a corpse-present.
Wharton.