FRANKMARRIAGE

frankmarriage.Hist. An entailed estate in which the donor retains control of the land by

refusing to accept feudal services from the donee (usu. the donor’s daughter) for three generations.

• If the donee’s issue fail in that time, the land returns to the donor. A donor who accepted homage

(and the corresponding services arising from it) from the donee risked losing control of the land to

a collateral heir. After three generations — a time considered sufficient to demonstrate that the line

was well established — the donee’s heir could insist on paying homage; doing so transformed the

estate into a fee simple. — Also termed liberum maritagium. See MARITAGIUM.

“Only when homage has been done are we to apply the rule which excludes the lord from the

inheritance. This is at the bottom of one of the peculiarities of the ‘estate in frankmarriage.’ When

a father makes a provision for a daughter, he intends that if the daughter has no issue or if her

issue fails — at all events if this failure occurs in the course of a few generations — the land shall

come back to him or to his heir. Therefore no homage is done for the estate in frankmarriage until

the daughter’s third heir has entered, for were homage once done, there would be a danger that the

land would never come back to the father or to his heir.” 2 Frederick Pollock & Frederic W.

Maitland, The History of English Law Before the Time of Edward I 291 (2d ed. 1899).[Blacks Law 8th]