An 1279 enactment by King Edward I of England intended to stop land from passing into the hands of religious institutions like the church, where they were beyond the scope of state control.

Normally, landowners occupied their plots through a tenancy arrangement. Officially, these plots belonged to the king and ownership reverted to him upon their tenants' deaths. However, as the church could not, so to speak, die, it held its estates in perpetuity and the state could generate no further revenue from them. The statute put an end to this practice by barring ecclesiastical bequests of land without special royal permission.

An annotated text of the statute can be found here.

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