Frank almoin, frankalmoign or frankalmoigne () was one of the

feudal land tenure Under the English feudal system several different forms of land tenure existed, each effectively a contract with differing rights and duties attached thereto. Such tenures could be either free-hold if they were hereditable or perpetual or non-fr ...

s in

feudal Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was a combination of legal, economic, military, cultural, and political customs that flourished in Middle Ages, medieval Europe from the 9th to 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of struc ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

whereby an ecclesiastical body held land free of military service such as knight service or other secular or religious service (but sometimes in return for the religious service of saying prayers and masses for the soul of the grantor). Secular service not due, and in the 12th and 13th centuries, jurisdiction over land so held belonged to the ecclesiastical courts and was thus immune from royal jurisdiction. In

English law English law is the common law list of national legal systems, legal system of England and Wales, comprising mainly English criminal law, criminal law and Civil law (common law), civil law, each branch having its own Courts of England and Wales, ...

, frankalmoign(e) was also known as "tenure in free alms". Gifts to religious institutions in free alms were defined first as gifts to God, then to the

patron saint A patron saint, patroness saint, patron hallow or heavenly protector is a saint who in Catholicism, Anglicanism, Eastern Orthodoxy or Oriental Orthodoxy is regarded as the heavenly advocate of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, clan, fa ...

of the religious house and finally to those religious serving God in the specific house. The following example is from a charter of William de Vernon, 5th Earl of Devon (d.1217), to

Quarr Abbey Quarr Abbey (French language, French: ''Abbaye Notre-Dame de Quarr'') is a monastery between the villages of Binstead and Fishbourne, Isle of Wight, Fishbourne on the Isle of Wight in southern England. The name is pronounced as "Kwor" (r ...

: As the above example makes clear it was a freehold tenure as it was held in perpetual possession, which is equivalent to "hereditable" in secular terms. Religious houses in receipt of free alms could not recognise a secular lord. The gift of land or other property made over to God and to a patron Saint was inalienable, and the relationship between the grantor and the religious house was subsidiary. In the 12th century the institution came to be misused. Land could be donated to a church organization and then leased back to the donor, allowing the donor to avoid the feudal services due to his lord. Legal cases became so complicated that the Assize of Utrum was established in the middle of the 12th century to adjudicate claims. Thomas de Littleton's ''Tenures'', which perhaps appeared about 1470 as an update of a then century-old predecessor tract (the '' Old Tenures''), said to have been written under

Edward III Edward III (13 November 1312 – 21 June 1377), also known as Edward of Windsor before his accession, was King of England from January 1327 until his death in 1377. He is noted for his military success and for restoring royal authority after t ...

, contains a section on Frankalmoin.

Edward Coke Sir Edward Coke ( , formerly ; 1 February 1552 – 3 September 1634) was an English barrister, judge, and politician. He is often considered the greatest jurist of the Elizabethan era, Elizabethan and Jacobean era, Jacobean eras. Born into a ...

commented on this in the first part of his '' Institutes of the Lawes of England'', published within his '' Commentary upon Littleton'', which he completed about a century and a half after its subject's first appearance. Coke provided cases and noted how practice related to Littleton's work had changed during that time. Frankalmoin was the tenure by which the greater number of the monasteries and religious houses held their lands; it was expressly exempted from the

Tenures Abolition Act 1660 The Tenures Abolition Act 1660 ( 12 Cha. 2. c. 24), sometimes known as the Statute of Tenures, was an act of the Parliament of England which changed the nature of several types of feudal land tenure in England. The long title of the act was ' ...

, by which the other ancient tenures were abolished, and it was the tenure by which the parochial clergy and many ecclesiastical and eleemosynary foundations held their lands through the 19th century. As a form of donation, frankalmoin fell into disuse because on any alienation of the land the tenure was converted into socage. An apparent attempt was made to abolish frankalmoin in the Administration of Estates Act 1925; but in any case no fresh grants in frankalmoin, save by the Crown, were possible after in 1290.

Sources

*{{EB1911, wstitle=Frank-almoign, volume=11, page=16

References

Feudal duties Real property law English property law Land tenure

See also

Sources

References