Frank-marriage, ''maritagium'' or ''liberum maritagium'' was a form of conditional marriage-gift of land under English law, often from father to daughter. It was classed as a type of

fee tail In English common law, fee tail or entail is a form of trust established by deed or settlement which restricts the sale or inheritance of an estate in real property and prevents the property from being sold, devised by will, or otherwise alien ...

. In

early medieval England Anglo-Saxon England or Early Medieval England, existing from the 5th to the 11th centuries from the end of Roman Britain until the Norman conquest in 1066, consisted of various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms until 927, when it was united as the Kingdom of ...

land could be given to a bride on her marriage with the intent that it should descend to the children of the marriage to help set up the new family. Since land given in fee absolute (outright) was at risk of ultimately passing to collateral heirs or being sold or given away ( alienation), it was common practice to ensure that the land remained with the direct heirs by giving it instead in frank-marriage (''in liberum maritagium''). Under this system, the donor's daughter and later the children of the marriage would hold the land for three generations free of all feudal services, with the donor or his heirs being able to recover it in the event that the direct family line ended during that period. If the family line survived for three generations, the land would convert to

fee simple In English law, a fee simple or fee simple absolute is an estate in land, a form of freehold ownership. A "fee" is a vested, inheritable, present possessory interest in land. A "fee simple" is real property held without limit of time (i.e., perm ...

. Typically, the three-generation rule was not explicitly stated in charters of gift, but apparently grew out of twelfth-century custom. By the middle of the thirteenth-century, there were concerns that the rule whereby the donor or his heirs could recover the land if the family line failed were proving ineffective. In 1258 the

barons Baron is a rank of nobility or title of honour, often hereditary, in various European countries, either current or historical. The female equivalent is baroness. Typically, the title denotes an aristocrat who ranks higher than a lord or knigh ...

unsuccessfully petitioned the king complaining that nothing was being done to prevent widows without heirs from selling land granted to them in maritagium to third parties. Frank-marriage was first recognized in the reign of Henry II, and became the most common kind of marriage settlement up to the reign of

Elizabeth I Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is sometimes referred to as the "Virgin Queen". El ...

References

Bibliography

* * * * {{EB1911 , noprescript=1, wstitle=Frank-marriage , volume=11 , page=34 Real property law Legal history of England