First Fruits
A New Law Dictionary and Glossary · Alexander M. Burrill · 1850
A New Law Dictionary and Glossary
[L. Lat. primitiae.] In English ecclesiastical law. The first year's whole profits of every benefice or spiritual living in England, anciently paid by the incumbent to the pope, and forming together with tenths, a revenue, which at the reformation was annexed to the crown by statute 26 Hen. VIII. c.
3.
This revenue was by charter of Queen Anne, confirmed by statute 2 Anne c. 11, transferred to a perpetual fund (called from that circumstance Queen Anne's Bounty,) for the augmentation of poor livings. By statutes 5 & 6 Anne, benefices under £50 per annum, clear yearly value, were discharged from the payment of first fruits and tenths.
1 Bl. Com. 285, 286. 2 Steph. Com. 549, 550.
In feudal law. One year's profits of land which belonged to the king on the death of a tenant in capite; otherwise called primer seisin. One of the incidents to the old feudal tenures.
2 Bl. Com. 66, 67.