It stood in contrast to several kinds of restricted tenure (life interest, dowry, curtesy,(5) and the like), of which the most important was |fee tail', a tenure that obliged the tenant to pass on his property to a specified descendant, usually a male heir, or see it revert to the original donor or his heirs; the first chapter (De Donis) of Edward I's second Statute of Westminster (1285), made it extremely difficult to sell, or, as the lawyers would say, alienate, any property so held.
De Donis, recognizing that |it seemed very hard, and yet seemeth, to the Givers and their Heirs that their Will being expressed in the Gift, was not heretofore, nor yet is observed' (Statutes of the Realm, i.71), offered those who had been disadvantaged by the breaking of an entail a legal remedy (known as a writ of formedon) which made the buying or selling of entailed estates a very much more risky business.