in Law (from the verb feoffiare or infestare, to give one a fief), the gift or grant of any corporeal hereditament to another. He who so gives, or enfeoffs, is called the feoffer, and the person enfeoffed is denominated the feoffee.

FERALIA, in Antiquity, a festival observed amongst the Romans on the 21st February, or, according to Ovid, on the 17th of that month, in honour of the manes of their deceased friends and relations.

Varro derives the word from inferi, or from fero, on account of a repast carried to the sepulchres of such as had that day the last offices rendered to them. Festus derives it from ferio, on account of the victims sacrificed. Vossius observes that the Romans called death fera, cruel, and that hence might arise the word feralia. Macrobins (Saturnalia, lib. i. cap. 13), refers the origin of the ceremony to Numa Pompilius. Ovid, in his Fasti, goes back for its institution as far as the time of Æneas. He adds, that on the same day a sacrifice was performed to the goddess Mutia, or Dumb; and that the persons who officiated were an old woman and a number of attendant young girls.

During the continuance of this festival, which lasted eleven days, presents were made at the graves of the deceased, marriages were forbidden, and the temples of the gods were shut. Whilst the ceremonies continued, it was imagined that the ghosts suffered no punishments in hell, but that their tormentors allowed them to wander round their tombs, and to feast upon the meats which their surviving friends had prepared for them.

At the feralia public feasts were sometimes given to the people, at the tombs of the rich and great, by their heirs or particular friends.