Definition
An obsolete English real action by which a person claiming an interest in land by virtue of a gift in tail could recover possession when that estate had been discontinued or otherwise defeated. The writ derived its name from the Latin per formam doni — "by the form of the gift" — reflecting that the claimant's right rested entirely on the original terms of the grant creating the entail. Formedon was considered the highest remedy available to a tenant in tail because tenants in tail were excluded from the absolute writ of right, which was reserved for fee-simple claimants. The action was provided by the Statute of Westminster II (13 Edw. I, c. 1, 1285), which also enacted De Donis Conditionalibus, the foundational statute creating estates tail. Formedon was abolished in England by 3 & 4 William IV, c. 37 (1833), which reformed real property actions. It has no living counterpart in modern American or English practice.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "A writ of right for a tenant in tail in case of a discontinuance of the estate tail."
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "A writ of right for a tenant in tail in case of a discontinuance of the estate tail. This writ has been abolished."
Both sources capture the term accurately because formedon is pure legal vocabulary with no ordinary-language life. The only meaningful gap is that neither common-language definition conveys the procedural significance of the action — that it was the ceiling of legal remedy for a tenant in tail, not merely one option among many.
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
Formedon existed in three distinct forms corresponding to the relationship between the claimant and the original donee:
FORMEDON IN THE DESCENDER — The most common form. Brought by the lineal heir of the original donee in tail to recover land that had been alienated or discontinued by an ancestor. The claimant descended from the person to whom the gift in tail was made.
FORMEDON IN THE REMAINDER — Brought by a remainder-man in tail, that is, a person to whom the estate was limited in remainder after a prior estate tail, when the prior tenant had made a discontinuance or alienation that defeated the remainder.
FORMEDON IN THE REVERTER — Brought by the donor of the entail or the donor's heir to recover the land when the estate tail had come to an end by failure of the prescribed line of issue, and the land had not reverted naturally but had been displaced by discontinuance.
Why It Matters in Research
Formedon is a terminus-marking term. Encountering it in a source signals that the text is either pre-1834 English law, a historical survey of real property actions, or American case law citing English antecedents for purposes of common-law background. The Kansas cases noted in Anderson — St. Louis & S.F. R. Co. v. Chenault (1886) and companion decisions — illustrate that late nineteenth-century American courts occasionally invoked formedon principles when tracing the roots of entail and fee-tail doctrine, even in states where the action itself had never meaningfully existed.
Three research traps warrant attention. First, because the writ was abolished in England before American states had fully codified their own property law reforms, the American secondary literature often discusses formedon as pure historical background, sometimes without distinguishing the three subtypes. A researcher tracing fee-tail doctrine in a specific American jurisdiction must confirm whether that state had its own enabling statute for a comparable action or had simply converted fees tail to fees simple by statute. Second, the phrase per formam doni appears independently in conveyancing texts as a description of how the original grant operated, separate from any discussion of the writ. The two uses can blur in older treatises. Third, Rapalje & Lawrence's entry is substantively truncated in the available corpus text, providing a page reference (538) without usable content — researchers relying on that source will need to consult the full printed volume.
The abolition date matters for dating purposes. Any English text treating formedon as a live remedy predates 1834. Any American text treating it as live almost certainly predates the relevant state's fee-tail abolition statute, which varied widely.
Historical Dictionary Support
The five source dictionaries are in close agreement on the essentials — that formedon was an English real action, that it lay for one claiming per formam doni, that it was the highest remedy for a tenant in tail, and that it was abolished by 3 & 4 William IV, c. 37. Bouvier adds the most procedural texture, tracing the writ to the Statute of Westminster II and citing Stearns on Real Actions and Andrews & Stephen on Pleading as secondary authorities, which is consistent with early American practice of applying English common-law real actions where not locally modified. Anderson provides the most practically oriented definition, noting that the writ lay specifically where discontinuance threatened to defeat the interest — a useful framing for understanding the writ's operational trigger. Black's (both editions) is nearly identical in its text, emphasizing the comparative standing of formedon against the absolute writ of right.
No source dictionary addresses the American jurisdictional question with any depth, which is a collective gap. Researchers should not assume that any American state ever had a robust practice under this writ simply because the English common law was formally received. The writ's technical real-action machinery was largely bypassed in American jurisdictions that abolished fees tail by statute early in their legal development.
Jurisdictional Note
Formedon has been a dead letter in English law since 1833. In the United States, most states either abolished estates tail by statute or converted them to fee-simple estates, eliminating any basis for the action before it could take meaningful root. American references to formedon in reported cases are almost invariably historical or analogical. Researchers in states with early fee-tail abolition statutes — Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia — should expect to find only doctrinal citations to the English background, not live practice.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Fee Tail; Real Actions; Estates in Land; De Donis Conditionalibus; Writ of Right