in Law, denotes the act of making over a man's property in lands, tenements, &c., to another person.

ALIENATION in mortuam, is the making over lands, tenements, &c., to a body politic, or to a religious house, for which the king's licence must first be obtained, otherwise the lands, &c., alienated will be forfeited.

ALIENATION in fee, is the selling the fee-simple of any land or other incorporeal right. All persons who have a right to lands may generally alien them to others; but some alienations are prohibited; such as alienations by tenants for life, &c., whereby they incur a forfeiture of their estate. By the statute of Edward I., a bar was put to alienations by what we call entails, which is an expedient for procuring perpetuities in families; but counter-expedients were devised to defeat this intent, and a practice was introduced of cutting off entails by fines, and of barring remainders and reverences by recoveries. The statute for alienation in Henry VII.'s time had a great effect on the constitution of this kingdom; as, among other regulations of that reign, it tended to throw the balance of power more into the hands of the people. By the stat. 12 Car. II., cap. 24, fines for alienations are taken away. Crown lands are only alienable under a faculty of perpetual redemption. The council of Lateran, held in 1123, forbids any clerk to alienate his benefice, prebend, or the like. By the laws of the ancient Jews, lands could only be alienated for the space of 50 years. At each return of the jubilee all returned again to the primitive owners, or their descendants, to whom the lands were originally allotted at the first distribution of Ca-

ALIENATION-Office, is an office to which all writs of covenants and entry, upon which fines are levied, and recoveries suffered, are carried, to have fines for alienation set and paid thereon.