Definition
Westminster the Second is the statute 13 Edward I, st. 1, enacted in 1285 during the reign of Edward I of England. It is more commonly known by its operative provision, the Statute de Donis Conditionalibus — the statute concerning conditional gifts of land. The Act restricted the ability of donees of entailed land to alienate that land free of the conditions originally attached to the grant, effectively locking property within family lines and creating the fee tail as a durable estate in English land law. Before its enactment, judicial interpretation had allowed donees to sell or devise conditionally granted land once the condition (typically the birth of an heir) was satisfied. Westminster II reversed that interpretation, requiring that entailed land descend to the issue of the original donee according to the terms of the gift, regardless of the donee's wishes.
The statute takes its name from the location of the Parliament at Westminster in which it was enacted. It is the second of three great reforming statutes associated with Westminster during Edward I's reign, the others being Westminster the First (1275) and Westminster the Third (Quia Emptores, 1290).
Common Confusion
Westminster the Second is frequently conflated with the Statute de Donis Conditionalibus as though they were separate instruments. They are not — the Statute de Donis is simply the operative core of Westminster II, and the names are used interchangeably in both historical and legal sources. Researchers should also take care not to confuse this statute with Westminster the First or Westminster the Third; all three are often cited in close proximity in treatises on English land law, and their subject matter (judicial procedure, feudal tenures, and subinfeudation, respectively) is distinct.
Why It Matters in Research
Westminster the Second sits at the origin point of the fee tail and the entire doctrine of entail in English and American property law. Any research tracing the history of conditional fees, base fees, fee tail male, fee tail female, or the common recovery as a device to bar entails must begin here. The statute's long shadow reaches well into the nineteenth century.
Two important repeal notes appear in the historical sources: portions of the Act were repealed by 19 & 20 Victoria c. 64, and further by 26 & 27 Victoria c. 125 (cited as 8 & 1 Vict. c. 125 in Black's, which appears to be a typographical error in that edition). Researchers working with mid-to-late Victorian English property materials should verify which provisions of Westminster II remained operative at the relevant date.
In American jurisdictions, the statute's direct force was limited. Most American states either never received it as part of inherited English common law, abolished the fee tail early in their history by statute, or converted fee tail automatically into fee simple. However, the conceptual framework Westminster II established — conditional grants, restraints on alienation, and the tension between donor intent and free alienability — pervades American property law doctrine and treatise discussion through the nineteenth century and beyond. Researchers reading American treatises from Blackstone's influence forward will encounter this statute cited as the historical foundation for doctrines that American law modified or rejected.
The common recovery — the procedural fiction by which entails were barred prior to modern statutory reform — cannot be understood without Westminster II as its backdrop. The statute created the problem; the common recovery was the courts' workaround.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) and Rapalje & Lawrence are in close agreement, both identifying the statute as 13 Edw. I, st. 1, A.D. 1285, and both cross-referencing Reeves's History of the English Law (ch. 10, p. 163) and Wharton's Law Lexicon. This consistency reflects that by the late nineteenth century, the statute's identity and significance were settled and uncontroversial — the dictionaries are functioning as finding aids rather than analytical tools. Neither source discusses the substantive operation of de donis in any depth, directing researchers instead to the primary treatise literature. Neither addresses the American reception question at all, which is a meaningful gap for U.S.-focused researchers.
The partial repeal references in both sources — 19 & 20 Vict. c. 64 and the subsequent Victorian enactment — indicate that the compilers understood Westminster II as live law requiring attention to its current statutory status, not merely a historical artifact.
Jurisdictional Note
In England, Westminster the Second was progressively modified and ultimately rendered obsolete by the Fines and Recoveries Act 1833 (3 & 4 Will. IV c. 74) and subsequent Victorian property legislation. In the United States, reception of the statute varied by state and was frequently displaced by early anti-entail legislation; researchers must consult the specific state's common law reception statutes and property codes.