rations to have a licence of mortmain from the crown, to enable them to purchaſe lands: for as the king is the ultimate lord of every fee, he ought not, unleſs by his own conſent, to loſe his privilege of eſcheats and other feodal profits, by the veſting of lands in tenants that can never be attainted or die. And ſuch licences of mortmain ſeem to have been neceſſary among the Saxons, above ſixty years before the Norman conqueſt[1]. But, beſides this general licence from the king, as lord paramount of the kingdom, it was alſo requiſite, whenever there was a meſne or intermediate lord between the king and the alienor, to obtain his licence alſo (upon the ſame feodal principles) for the alienation of the ſpecific land. And if no ſuch licence was obtained, the king or other lord might reſpectively enter on the lands ſo aliened in mortmain, as a forfeiture. The neceſſity of this licence from the crown was acknowleged by the conſtitutions of Clarendon[2], in reſpect of advowſons, which the monks always greatly coveted, as being the groundwork of ſubſequent appropriations[3]. Yet ſuch were the influence and ingenuity of the clergy, that (notwithſtanding this fundamental principle) we find that the largeſt and moſt conſiderable dotations of religious houſes happened within leſs than two centuries after the conqueſt. And (when a licence could not be obtained) their contrivance ſeems to have been this: that, as the forfeiture for ſuch alienations accrued in the firſt place to the immediate lord of the fee, the tenant who meant to alienate firſt conveyed his lands to the religious houſe, and inſtantly took them back again, to hold as tenant to the monaſtery; which kind of inſtantaneous ſeiſin was probably held not to occaſion any forfeiture: and then, by pretext of ſome other forfeiture, ſurrender, or eſcheat, the ſociety entered into thoſe lands in right of ſuch their newly acquired ſigniory, as immediate lords of the fee. But, when theſe dotations began to grow numerous, it was obſerved that the feodal ſervices, ordained for the defence of the kingdom, were every day viſibly withdrawn; that the circulation of landed property from man to man began to
