A term applied to denote the alienation of lands or tenements to any corporation, sole or aggregate, ecclesiastical or temporal. These purchases havlng been chiefly made hy rellglous houses, ln consequence of which lands became perpetually inherent in one dead hand, this has occasioned the general appellation of “mortmain” to be applled to such alienations. 2 BL Comm. 268; Co. Lltt 2b; Perln v. Carey, 24 How. 495, 16 L. Ed. 701