BENEFICIUM

beneficium (ben-<<schwa>>-fish-ee-<<schwa>>m), n. [Latin “benefit”] 1.Roman law. A privilege, remedy, or benefit granted by law, such as the beneficium abstinendi (“privilege of abstaining”), by which an heir could refuse to accept an inheritance (and thereby avoid the accompanying debt).2.Hist. A lease, generally for life, given by a ruler or lord to a freeman. • Beneficium in this sense arose on the continent among the German tribes after the collapse of the Roman Empire.

“All those to whom the Frankish king had given land and to whom the Frankish emperor had granted political authority had received it on certain conditions. They were the recipients of royal favor — a beneficium. Their holding came to be so styled.” Max Radin, Handbook of Anglo-American Legal History 126 (1936).

3.Hist. English law. An estate in land granted by the king or a lord in exchange for services. • Originally, a beneficium could not be passed to the holder’s heirs, in contrast to feuds, which were heritable from an early date. Tenants, however, persisted in attempting to pass the property to their heirs, and over time the beneficium became a heritable estate. As this process occurred, the

meaning of beneficium narrowed to a holding of an ecclesiastical nature. See BENEFICE(1).“Beneficia were formerly Portions of Land, etc. given by Lords to their Followers for their Maintenance; but afterwards as these Tenures became Perpetual and Hereditary, they left their Name of Beneficia to the Livings of the Clergy, and retained to themselves the Name of Feuds. And Beneficium was an estate in land at first granted for Life only, so called, because it was held ex mero Beneficio of the Donor … [b]ut at Length, by the Consent of the Donor, or his Heirs, they were continued for the Lives of the Sons of the Possessors, and by Degrees past into an Inheritance….” Giles Jacob, A New Law-Dictionary (8th ed. 1762).

“In England from almost, if not quite, the earliest moment of its appearance, the word feodum seems not merely to imply, but to denote, a heritable, though a dependent right. But if on the continent we trace back the use of this word, we find it becoming interchangeable with beneficium, and if we go back further we find beneficium interchangeable with precarium. A tenancy at will has, we may say, become a tenancy in fee…. The Norman conquest of England occurs at a particular moment in the history of this process. It has already gone far; the words feum, feudum, feodum are fast supplanting beneficium….” 1 Frederick Pollock & Frederic W. Maitland, The History of English Law Before the Time of Edward I 67–68 (2d ed. 1898).

4.Hist. Eccles. law. A feudal tenure for life in church-owned land, esp. land held by a layperson. • Over time, this sense of beneficium faded, and it came to be restricted to that of an ecclesiastical living, i.e., a benefice.“The pope became a feodal lord; and all ordinary patrons were to hold their right of patronage under this universal superior. Estates held by feodal tenure, being originally gratuitous donations, were at that time denominated beneficia: their very name as well as constitution was borrowed, and the care of the souls of a parish thence came to be denominated a benefice.” 4 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 106 (1769).

5.Hist. A benefit or favor; any particular privilege, such as benefit of clergy (beneficium clericale).6.BENEFICE(3). — Also termed (in senses 3–6) benefice.[Blacks Law 8th]