Mortmain
A Law Dictionary, Adapted to the Constitution and Laws of the United States · John Bouvier · 1839
A Law Dictionary, Adapted to the Constitution and Laws of the United States
is an alienation of lands or tenements to any corporation, sole or aggregate, ecclesiastical or temporal. ‘These purchases having been chiefly made by religious houses, in consequence of which lands became perpetually inherent in one dead hand, this has occasioned the general appellation of mortmain to be applied to such alienations.
2 Bl. Com. 268; Co. Litt. 2 b; Ersk. Inst. B. 2, t. 4, s. 10.