Definition
In ecclesiastical law, the severance of an appropriation of a benefice — the dissolution of the legal bond by which a benefice (a church living with its associated revenues) had been annexed to a lay or corporate owner. Disappropriation occurred in one of two ways: (1) the patron who held the appropriated benefice presented a clerk to fill it, thereby restoring the benefice to ordinary ecclesiastical use, or (2) the corporation holding the appropriation was dissolved, leaving no legal entity to retain the annexed rights. The practical effect was to restore the benefice to its original, unappropriated condition, freeing it from lay or corporate control and returning it to the regular governance of the Church.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "The act of disappropriating; of taking something away from someone."
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "The act of disappropriating."
Neither dictionary provides substantive content beyond the verb form. In general usage, "disappropriation" might be read as any act of removing a prior appropriation or allocation. In its strict legal sense, the term is narrower and highly specific: it refers exclusively to the severance of an ecclesiastical appropriation of a benefice, with defined triggering mechanisms under canon and common law. The common-language reading — simply "taking something away" — gives no indication of this technical ecclesiastical context or of the specific legal consequences that followed.
Why It Matters in Research
This term belongs to a narrow but historically significant body of English ecclesiastical and property law. Researchers will encounter it almost exclusively in pre-twentieth century English legal materials and in historical treatments of church law. Several navigational points matter:
First, the term is inseparable from its counterpart, APPROPRIATION (in the ecclesiastical sense). Understanding disappropriation requires first establishing what an appropriation of a benefice was — the annexation of a parish church's revenues to a monastery, college, or lay corporation, with the appointing body substituting a vicar for the rector. Disappropriation reversed that structure.
Second, the Reformation context is critical. The dissolution of English monasteries under Henry VIII (1530s–1540s) generated massive disappropriation by operation of law, as the corporate holders of countless appropriated benefices ceased to exist. Researchers working on post-Reformation church property disputes, tithe law, or advowson records will need to trace whether a particular benefice had been appropriated and, if so, whether it was subsequently disappropriated. The distinction materially affected rights to tithes and to the advowson.
Third, the term rarely appears in American legal sources. American ecclesiastical law did not replicate the English system of appropriated benefices, and the concept has no meaningful domestic American application. Researchers encountering the term in American dictionaries (as in Rapalje & Lawrence) should understand it as imported English ecclesiastical doctrine included for completeness rather than as operative American law.
Fourth, corpus researchers should note that "disappropriation" is frequently indexed under APPROPRIATION in historical digests and encyclopedias — not as a standalone entry — which means keyword searching on the term alone may return incomplete results.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three source dictionaries reproduce essentially identical text, each tracing directly to Blackstone's Commentaries (1 Bl. Comm. 385). The uniformity signals that compilers treated the term as settled, unremarkable ecclesiastical doctrine requiring only Blackstone's formulation, not independent analysis. No source attempts a broader functional explanation or connects the concept to tithe law, advowson doctrine, or the practical consequences for parish governance — a gap that limits their usefulness for research beyond confirming the basic definition.
Rapalje & Lawrence is the most useful of the three for navigational purposes, cross-referencing both APPROPRIATION (at entry 27) and SINECURE, which provides a thread into related ecclesiastical property concepts. Black's (both editions) omits those cross-references. None of the three sources address the historical significance of monastic dissolution as the primary engine of disappropriation in practice — a notable omission given how large that episode looms in English church property history.
Jurisdictional Note
Disappropriation is a concept of English ecclesiastical and common law with no operative American equivalent. It may appear in American legal dictionaries and colonial-era legal materials but does not describe any recognized legal process in American jurisdictions. Researchers working in English legal history, comparative ecclesiastical law, or the history of tithe and benefice rights should consult English canon law sources alongside common law authorities.