Definition
Ouster le main (also written as a single word, ousterlemain) is a term from old English feudal law referring to the delivery of lands out of the hands of a guardian or the Crown, restoring possession to the rightful owner. It operated in two distinct contexts:
1. Wardship: Upon a ward reaching the age of majority — twenty-one for males, sixteen for females — the ward's lands were released from the guardian's control. The ouster le main was the formal act of that release, sometimes also denoting the fine or fee payable to obtain it. This form was abolished by the Statute of Tenures (12 Car. II, c. 24, 1660), which swept away most of the incidents of feudal tenure in England.
2. Crown tenure (prerogative wardship): Where the Crown held lands by reason of a tenant's minority or through other prerogative rights, a subject could petition for return of those lands. Ouster le main in this context was the delivery of the land out of the king's hands pursuant to a judgment obtained through a monstrans de droit — a proceeding by which a subject asserted a legal right against the Crown. The term described both the proceeding's outcome and the judgment itself.
In either context, the concept is closely related to livery — the formal act of delivery of seisin — and is sometimes used interchangeably with it in older sources, though technical writers distinguished the two.
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Common Language
Wiktionary: "A delivery of lands out of the hands of a guardian, or out of the king's hands, or a judgement given for that purpose."
Editorial note: Wiktionary captures the basic meaning accurately but does not reflect the term's two distinct operational contexts, the procedural machinery required to obtain the delivery, or the fact that a separate fine was sometimes payable. The common definition also obscures the term's status as a relic of feudal tenure that has had no operative legal force since the seventeenth century.
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Common Confusion
Ouster le main is frequently collapsed with livery in historical sources, and the two terms sometimes appear as synonyms. They are not identical: livery referred to the physical act of delivering seisin of land generally, while ouster le main referred specifically to delivery out of a guardian's or the Crown's hands following the ward's attainment of majority or a successful legal proceeding. Burrill's Law Dictionary notes this overlap and flags that "otherwise called livery" appears in some sources, while maintaining the distinction matters for understanding the procedural history.
Researchers should also be careful not to confuse ouster le main with ouster generally. Modern legal usage of ouster refers to wrongful dispossession of a co-tenant or other rightful possessor — a live concept in property law. Ouster le main is a strictly historical term with no modern operative application.
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Why It Matters in Research
This term surfaces almost exclusively in pre-1660 English legal materials and in treatises describing the feudal tenure system. Researchers working with early common law records, Coke's Institutes, Blackstone's Commentaries, or Year Books will encounter it in the context of wardship disputes and Crown land administration. Several research traps apply:
Abolition date matters: The Statute of Tenures (1660) eliminated the feudal incidents — including wardship and its associated machinery — that made ouster le main operative. Any source post-dating 1660 that uses the term is either discussing legal history or quoting older authority.
Spelling variation is significant: Early sources may render this as ousterlemain (one word), ouster le main (three words), or various hyphenated forms. Database searches should account for all variants.
The two meanings are not interchangeable in context: In cases involving Crown prerogative, the procedural vehicle was monstrans de droit, and the relevant research thread runs through that proceeding. In wardship cases, the thread runs through the law of guardian and ward. Conflating the two will send a researcher down the wrong doctrinal path.
Burrill cites Coke on Littleton (Co. Litt. 77) and Comyns's Digest — both primary synthesis sources for this term. Black's 1st and 2nd editions are consistent but thinner, relying on Mozley & Whitley for the wardship definition. Neither Black's edition explains the fine payable for livery, which Burrill covers and which is relevant to understanding Crown revenue from the wardship system.
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Historical Dictionary Support
All three source dictionaries agree on the core meaning — delivery of lands out of a guardian's or the Crown's hands — and on the two principal contexts. Burrill's is the most complete, adding the fine payable for livery and citing primary sources (Coke, Comyns) that the Black's editions do not. Black's 2nd edition appears truncated on this entry, cutting off mid-definition and omitting the wardship context entirely, which is a gap researchers should note when relying on that edition alone.
None of the historical dictionaries flag the 1660 abolition with sufficient prominence; Mozley & Whitley (cited in Black's 1st) notes it, but neither Burrill nor Black's 2nd edition provides adequate warning that this is dead law by the Restoration. A researcher encountering the term in a post-1660 source should treat it as historical reference, not operative doctrine.
Wiktionary's definition, while accurate, is derived from these same historical legal dictionary sources and adds nothing beyond what the primary dictionaries contain.
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Jurisdictional Note
Ouster le main is an English feudal law term. It was never incorporated as operative doctrine in American law; American jurisdictions did not adopt the feudal tenure system that made the concept functional. It may appear in early American treatises discussing English legal history but carries no jurisdictional weight in any U.S. jurisdiction.
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