Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A legal arrangement in which a property owner such as an ecclesiastical institution is barred from transferring or selling its property.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In law, possession of lands or tenements in dead hands, or hands that cannot alienate, as those of ecclesiastical corporations; unalienable possession.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Law) Possession of lands or tenements in, or conveyance to, dead hands, or hands that cannot alienate.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun law The
perpetual ,inalienable possession of lands by acorporation or non-personal entity such as achurch . - noun literary A
strong andinalienable possession.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun real property held inalienably (as by an ecclesiastical corporation)
- noun the oppressive influence of past events or decisions
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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On the last occasion the king ennobled him, As prime minister he was most zealous in establishing the supremacy of the State over the Church, and in abolishing the privileges of the nobility together with feudalism, He restricted the jurisdiction of the bishops, impeded the last increment of the so-called mortmain, and reduced the taxes belonging to the chancery of the Roman Curia.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 14: Simony-Tournon 1840-1916 1913
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It is to this inalienability of all the possessions of the Church, which like the "hand of a dead man" never loosens its grip of what it once has clutched, that the prejudice already referred to against property held in "mortmain" grew up in the thirteenth century.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 12: Philip II-Reuss 1840-1916 1913
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Whatever advantages are obtained by a state proceeding on these maxims, are locked fast as in a sort of family settlement; grasped as in a kind of mortmain for ever.
Paras. 50-74 1909
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The "oppressive past influence" sense of both "mortmain" and "dead hand" developed from the idea of the dead exercising posthumous control over their property by dictating how it must be used after they die.
Latest Articles 2009
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"mortmain", a word coined to represent the condition where land has come into the possession of a dead hand, or in Latin mortua manus.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 3: Brownson-Clairvaux 1840-1916 1913
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"mortmain" were for this reason always regarded as wrong in principle, though the loss occasioned to the feudal lord by the cessation of reliefs, escheats, wardships, marriages, etc., when the land was made over to ecclesiastical uses could not be denied.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 12: Philip II-Reuss 1840-1916 1913
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a sort of family settlement, grasped as in a kind of mortmain forever.
The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 03 (of 12) Edmund Burke 1763
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The windows blocked all sound, and there was nothing audible in this room at all save the faint ticking of a wall clock with mortmain and company engraved on the face in gold.
Clockwork Angel Cassandra Clare 2010
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Alexandria, built over the grave a place of visitation and endowed it with mortmain writing over the door these couplets,
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Property was kept away from perpetual corporations such as the Church by the doctrine of mortmain.
Balkinization 2006
super-kawy commented on the word mortmain
The often oppressive influence of the past on the presence.
September 22, 2009