Definition
Ousterlemain (also written ouster le main) was a writ commanding that seisin or possession of land be delivered out of the hands of the Crown and restored to the person legally entitled to it. The term derives from the Law French meaning "out of the hand," referring to the removal of the sovereign's custodial grip on the land.
The writ was the procedural mechanism by which an heir who had been held in ward — that is, whose lands were managed by the Crown during the heir's minority because the land was held of the Crown — formally recovered possession upon reaching legal majority. Until ousterlemain issued, the heir's title might be clear, but the Crown's hand remained on the land. The writ effectuated the transition from wardship to full possession.
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Common Language
This is pure legal jargon of Anglo-Norman origin with no meaningful counterpart in modern or historical common usage. The COMMON LANGUAGE section is omitted.
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Common Confusion
Ousterlemain is sometimes loosely conflated with livery of seisin, the broader ceremony or act by which seisin was transferred. The distinction matters: livery of seisin described the act of delivering possession generally, while ousterlemain was the specific writ directed at Crown custody arising from the feudal wardship system. Ousterlemain was one particular species of delivery out of the Crown's hand, not a synonym for seisin-transfer as a general concept. Researchers should also avoid confusing ousterlemain with the concept of ouster as used in modern property law, which refers to the wrongful exclusion of a co-tenant — a wholly different doctrine with no historical connection.
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Why It Matters in Research
This term belongs almost entirely to the historical law of feudal tenures and the royal prerogative of wardship. It will appear in English legal records, treatises, and Year Books from the medieval period through the seventeenth century, and will drop away sharply after the Statute of Tenures (Tenures Abolition Act 1660), which dismantled the system of military tenures and feudal incidents, including wardship, that gave the writ its purpose. Researchers encountering ousterlemain in sources dated after the mid-seventeenth century should treat the usage as archaic reference or historical commentary, not as a living procedural mechanism.
The term is tightly bound to the vocabulary of feudal land tenure. Researchers working through Coke's Institutes, Littleton's Tenures, or early Year Books will encounter it in close company with wardship, livery, primer seisin, and homage. Understanding ousterlemain requires familiarity with the structure of tenure ut de honore — land held of the Crown as of an honor rather than in chief — which carried wardship incidents but was treated somewhat differently than land held directly of the Crown in capite.
A practical trap: Law French spelling is inconsistent across manuscript and printed sources. Variants include ouster le main, ousterlemaine, and oustrelemayn. Search strategies in digitized historical corpora should account for this variation.
American sources treat this term as a pure historical curiosity. It will not appear in American case law or statutes as an operative concept. Its appearance in American legal dictionaries such as Rapalje & Lawrence is archival — recording English legal history for the benefit of American practitioners reading English authorities.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Rapalje & Lawrence provide a compact and accurate entry, citing Termes de la Ley and Coke on Littleton (Co. Litt. 77a) as the foundational authorities. The definition they offer — delivery of land out of the Crown's hands to the entitled heir — is consistent with Coke's treatment and accurately captures the writ's function within the wardship framework.
What the single-source entry does not develop is the procedural context: the writ was not self-executing. The heir had to sue out ousterlemain in Chancery, and the process involved establishing both the fact of majority and the nature of the tenure. The cross-reference to LIVERY and WARD in Rapalje & Lawrence correctly signals the systemic context.
Coke on Littleton, the primary authority cited, remains the deepest available treatment of the doctrine and should be the first resort for researchers needing substantive analysis rather than a dictionary gloss.
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Jurisdictional Note
Ousterlemain is exclusively an English legal concept rooted in the Crown's feudal prerogative. It has no application in American law and never took root in any American jurisdiction. Colonial land tenure systems did not replicate the English wardship machinery in a form that would generate this writ.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Feudal Tenures; Wardship and Marriage; Livery of Seisin.
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