Definition
Frank marriage (Latin: *liberum maritagium*) is a medieval form of conditional fee or entailed estate in English land law, arising when a donor conveyed land to a man together with a woman — typically the donor's daughter or other blood relative — as a marriage gift. The grant was made "in frank marriage," meaning the land passed to the couple and the heirs of their bodies free from any service or rent owed to the donor, for a defined period (traditionally through three generations of heirs). If the line failed — that is, if the couple died without heritable issue — the land reverted to the donor or the donor's heirs.
The distinguishing feature of frank marriage was its conditional freedom from tenure obligations: the donees owed no homage, fealty, or rent to the donor during the first three generations. After the third generation of heirs, the tenure converted to ordinary tenure by knight service or socage, and homage then became due. The estate was a species of what later jurisprudence recognized as fee tail, formalized and largely supplanted by the Statute De Donis Conditionalibus (1285).
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Common Confusion
Frank marriage is sometimes loosely grouped with other forms of conditional fee or fee tail as if they were identical. They are not. A fee tail created by ordinary grant gave the donee's heirs a heritable interest from the outset but imposed tenure obligations immediately. Frank marriage was distinguished precisely by the temporary exemption from service obligations and by the requirement that the woman be of the donor's blood — an element absent from a plain conditional fee. After De Donis, the practical distinctiveness of frank marriage faded, as the statute regularized conditional fees generally, but the form technically survived as a separate category in the doctrinal literature.
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Why It Matters in Research
Frank marriage is a term a researcher encounters almost exclusively in medieval and early modern English legal sources — Year Books, Bracton, Littleton's *Tenures*, and commentaries on real property tenure. Several research traps apply.
**Obsolescence but doctrinal survival.** Burrill correctly notes that frank marriage had "grown out of use" while remaining theoretically capable of subsisting. This means post-medieval treatises may mention it only to confirm its obsolescence, while earlier sources treat it as a live conveyancing form. A researcher reading across time periods must calibrate accordingly — a 19th-century reference to frank marriage is almost certainly historical or doctrinal, not transactional.
**Connection to De Donis and fee tail.** Understanding frank marriage requires understanding the Statute De Donis Conditionalibus (1285), which is the legislative pivot point for the entire conditional fee structure. Sources written before De Donis treat frank marriage as a distinct and operative form; sources after De Donis tend to subsume it within the broader fee tail analysis. Encyclopedia entries on fee tail and De Donis are essential companion reading.
**The "of the blood" requirement.** Burrill's entry notes that the woman given in frank marriage must be a daughter or cousin "of the blood" of the donor. This kinship element is legally operative — it is what distinguishes frank marriage from an ordinary conditional fee grant — but it is easy to miss in summary treatments. Researchers examining historical conveyancing documents should look for explicit language establishing the donor-donee blood relationship when attempting to classify a grant as frank marriage.
**Corpus connections.** Because frank marriage is a tenure concept, it connects not only to family law history but centrally to the Law Mind property and land tenure materials. References to *liberum maritagium* in Latin records and to frank marriage in English records describe the same institution; researchers working in ecclesiastical or manorial records may encounter the Latin form without an English gloss.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's entry is brief but accurate in its essentials. He cites Littleton's *Tenures*, section 17 — the standard primary authority — and correctly identifies frank marriage as a species of entailed estate. The entry's truncation (the definition cuts off mid-sentence at "heirs of their") means Burrill's full treatment is not available in the source material here, but the substance aligns with the standard doctrinal account: land conveyed with a wife of the donor's blood, the heirs of the donees to take, with service obligations suspended for the first three generations.
What historical dictionaries characteristically omit or compress: the reversion mechanics, the precise point at which the tenure obligation converted, and the relationship to De Donis. Blackstone's *Commentaries* (Book II) and Coke upon Littleton provide substantially fuller treatment than any dictionary entry and are the primary sources a serious researcher should consult. Burrill's entry is useful as a finding aid but not as a complete doctrinal account.
No significant divergence exists among standard historical legal dictionaries on the core definition; the variation is in depth, not substance.
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Jurisdictional Note
Frank marriage was exclusively an English common law institution tied to the feudal tenure system. It was never transplanted as an operative conveyancing form to American jurisdictions, which did not inherit the feudal tenure framework. American property law references to frank marriage are historical or academic only.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
The Law Mind Family Law Encyclopedia — Marriage (general entry) provides context for the marital dimension of this grant form, though frank marriage is fundamentally a property tenure concept rather than a marriage law concept. The encyclopedia's treatment of marriage as a legal status is relevant background; researchers seeking the land law dimension should consult the property and tenure materials directly.
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