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Updated: May 19, 2025
Both priests and monks in the time of Bishop Grostête of Lincoln frequented taverns and gambling-houses. So enormous and scandalous was the wealth of the clergy, that as early as 1279, under Edward I., Parliament passed a statute of mortmain, forbidding religious bodies to receive bequests without the King's license.
In the reign of Edward I., efforts were made to prevent the alienation of land by those who received it from the Norman sovereigns. The statute of mortmain was passed to restrain the giving of lands to the Church, the statute DE DONIS to prevent alienation to laymen.
In view of the circumstances just narrated, it is not surprising to learn that in Philip II.'s time a vast portion of the real estate of the country was held by the Church in mortmain; that forty-nine noble families owned all the rest; that all great estates were held in tail; and that the property of the aristocracy and the clergy was completely exempt from taxation.
He whose possessions were subject to mortmain could neither bequeath nor inherit property; he was treated like the animals, whose services and offspring belong to their master by right of accession.
This was appropriated for ever as a college for the education of nobles and gentlemen, to be governed by a regent and professors, chosen by 'balloting-box, who were made a body corporate, permitted to use a common seal, and to possess goods and lands in mortmain.
Two years later its founder was knighted by King James, who on the following June directed letters patent to be issued styling the library by the founder's name and licensing the University to hold land in mortmain for its maintenance. The most learned and by no means the most foolish of our Kings, this same James I., visited the Bodleian in May, 1605. Sir Thomas was not present.
To the mortmain of the Church reverts Urbino's lordship, and even now he meditates the terms of devolution. Jesuits cluster in the rooms behind, with comfort for the ducal soul and calculations for the interests of Holy See.
"My lord," he said, "I know that in this country mortmain is held to apply to trinkets as well as to land, and it is quite clear to me that these jewels are, or should be, heirlooms in your family. I must beg you, accordingly, to take them to London with you, and to regard them simply as a portion of your property which has been restored to you under certain strange conditions.
Like most ancient popular prejudices, however, the blind instinct against corporations, common among our Populists, has a strong historical basis; it comes directly down from the prejudice against Mortmain, the dead hand, and from that against the Roman law; for corporations were unknown to the common law, and legislation against Mortmain dates from Magna Charta itself.
"The same reason which obliges them to make statutes of mortmain, and other laws, against the people's giving estates to the clergy, will equally hold for their taking them away when given." A great security for property! Will this hold to any other society in the state, as merchants, &c. or only to ecclesiastics? A pretty project: Forming general schemes requires a deeper head than this man's.
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