Mortmain in Medieval Boroughs 741 some passages in borough customals,' and b}- a clause found in grants of land allowing the same to pass to the grantee's heirs or assigns, excepting men of religion or religious houses.^ This anti-clerical movement in the boroughs is of some impor- tance for national as well as local history, especially as regards its relations to the Statute of Mortmain (1279). This statute forbade any monk or other person (religiostts aiit aliiis) to buy and sell or receive any lands or tenements whereby they may come into mort- main. The statute intimates that the earlier laws on this subject had been ineffective. The Charter of Liberties of 1217, ch. 43, had provided that no one was to give land to a religious house resuming it to be held of that house, and the Provisions of ^est- minster (1259), ch. 14, had enacted that religious men were not to enter the fee of any' one without the licence of the chief lord from whom the property was held.' The statute of 1279 seems to applv to the secular clergy as well as to the monks, and was so applied by Edward I. and his successors ;^ but the contemporary chroniclers speak of it as though its application was limited to the monks, -^ and the Articuli Cleri, issued between 1279 and 1285, request that it should not apply to the secular clergy.'^ The movement in the ' Besides the restrictions on alienation in the customals of Dublin and Water- ford (above, page 7381. see those in the customals of Godmanchester, 1324, Scarborough, 1348, and Hereford, 1348. Borough Citstoiiis, ed. Bateson, 11. 97, 201 ; Municipal Corp. Com. Report, 1835, p. 2838. In 1298 a jury declares that, according to the custom of Scarborough, every tenant may, on his death-bed, devise his tenements to whomsoever he will, except to religious men. Yorkshire Inquisitions, ed. Brown, III. 93 ; cf. ibid., I. 220. 2 London, 1181-1222, Hist. MSS. Com., IX. i, 50; Grimsby, Hen. III.. Rot. Himd., I. 291 ; Bath, 1250-1260, King and Watts, Records of Bath, app.. p. xvii ; Canterbury, 1269, Cal. of Charter Rolls, II. 123: Lynn, c. 1271, Parkin, free- bridge Hundred, 125 ; Nottingham, a lease, Edw. I., Records of Nottingham, ed. Stevenson, I. 364; Dublin, 1284, 1290, Gilbert, Cal. of Dublin Records, I. 103, 106; Rye, Wycombe, and Dartmouth, Edw. I., Hist. MSS. Com., V. 505, 559, 599-601, 606. This restrictive clause also appears in some manorial grants of arable land. Ib,d., XV. pt. x. 131, and MSS. of Duke of Rutland, IV. 70; Roper, Church of Lancaster, 395 ; Yorkshire Inquisitions, ed. Brown, II. 91. Some of these burghal and manorial deeds also forbid alienation to Jew-s. Cf. Bracton, f. 13, ed. Twiss, I. 104. ^Stubbs, Select Charters. 347, 404, 458; cf. Close Rolls, 1227-1231, p. 88. In 125S, at the Parliament of Oxford, the barons prayed remedy that men of religion may not enter the fees of earls, barons, and others without their will, whereby they lose forever their wardships, marriages, reliefs, and escheats. Stubbs, Select Charters, 383. The Statute of Marlborough, 1267, re-enacted the Provisions of 1259, but omitted ch. 14. ' List of Inquisitions ad Quod Damnum (Public Record Office. Lists and Indexes, No. 17). The statute Quia Emptores, 1290, repeats the prohibition of 1279 without limiting it to the religious. See also Fleta, bk. iii., ch. v: Statute of Westminster II., ch. 32. Even the enactment of 1217 was applied to "any ecclesiastical persons". Close Rolls, 1227-1231, p. 88. 5 Annales Monastici, ed. Luard, II. 392, III, 282, IV. 282, 479 ; Cotton, His- toria Anglicana, ed. Luard, 158 ; Flores Hist., ed. Luard, III. 53. s Papers from Northern Registers, ed. Raine, 78 ; " ubi dicitur manum mor- tuam ibi oportet suppleri scilicet predictorum religiosorum."
