De Donis

Kenneth C. Salzberg, Hamline University

Abstract

For many hundreds of years, starting at least in the 12th Century, many owners of land granted the land to a new owner 'and the heirs of his body' - or some similar form of grant. The grantors continued to do this notwithstanding very substantial changes, over at least two centuries, in the law’s understanding of the effect of such grants. Part I provides an historical and jurisprudential analysis of those grants. Part II attempts to explain why so many land owners continued to make such grants, seemingly at about the same rate, throughout the 200 year period of those substantial changes in the legal recognition of the grants.