De Donis Conditionalibus

Concerning lands that many times are given upon condition, that is to wit, where any giveth his land to any man and his wife, and to the heirs begotten of the bodies of the same man and his wife . . . the will of the giver, according to the form in the deed of gift manifestly expressed, shall be from henceforth observed; so that they to whom the land was given under such condition shall have no power to aliene the land so given, but that it shall remain unto the issue of them to whom it was given after their death, or shall revert unto the giver or his heirs, if issue fail.

Editorial note. Before 1285, gifts of land "to A and the heirs of his body" were treated by the royal courts as conditional fees: the donee held a fee simple that became absolute upon the birth of issue, whereupon the donee could alienate and defeat the reversion. The barons obtained the statute to protect the family settlement.

Editorial note. The statute's declared purpose is to enforce the donor's intention according to the form of the gift, preserving the reversion and the donee's issue against defeasance by the immediate donee's alienation.

Editorial note. Gifts in the statutory form pass an estate in fee tail: the donee takes a life estate at law, the issue take a corresponding entail interest, and on failure of issue the land reverts to the donor or the donor's heirs. Alienation by the donee is void against the issue and the reverter.

Editorial note. The statute governs every conveyance in the specified form and, by extension, gifts to a person and the heirs male, or the heirs female, of the donee's body (general and special tails).

Editorial note. Read together with Quia Emptores (1290), which addressed alienation of estates in fee simple, De Donis fixed the two great categories of medieval English tenure: alienable fee simple and restrained fee tail. The estate tail was later disentailed by the common recovery (Taltarum's Case, Y.B. Mich. 12 Edw. 4, f. 19, pl. 25 (1472)) and finally abolished for England by the Fines and Recoveries Act 1833.

Editorial note. American jurisdictions received the estate tail with reception statutes and abolished or converted it by statute; the doctrinal residue survives in the interpretation of gift language, in the modern policy against perpetual dynastic control of land, and in the Rule Against Perpetuities.

Editorial note. The estate tail became the principal instrument of the strict family settlement in early-modern England. Its restraint on alienation was mitigated at law by the common recovery and by fine, and abolished outright by statute in the nineteenth century.

Editorial note. The donor's intention, if expressed in the statutory form, governs descent. The immediate donee may not alienate to defeat the reversion or the issue. The estate is entailed to the specified line and reverts on its failure.

Editorial note. The seminal case is Taltarum's Case (1472), which recognized the common recovery as a device permitting a tenant in tail to convey a fee simple. American cases treated the abolition of the estate tail as a matter of statute, converting outstanding entails into fee simple or life estate with a fee-simple remainder.

Editorial note. Modern American courts encounter De Donis chiefly in construing conveyances that use archaic entail language, applying the local abolition statute to translate the archaic form into the modern equivalent.

Editorial note. See Quia Emptores, 18 Edw. 1, c. 1 (1290); Fines and Recoveries Act 1833, 3 & 4 Will. 4, c. 74; Restatement (First) of Property §§ 59–74 (estates tail).

Editorial note. Every modern rule that restrains dynastic dead-hand control of land—the Rule Against Perpetuities, statutes abolishing entails, doctrines disfavoring unreasonable restraints on alienation—traces its lineage to the tension between De Donis and the common law's preference for alienable estates.