FEOFFMENT

A gift of any corporeal hereditaments to another. It operates by transmutation of possession, and it is essential to its completion that the seisin be passed. This term also signifies the instrument or deed by which such hereditament is conveyed.

This instrument was used as one of the earliest modes of conveyance of the common law. It signified the grant of a feud or fee, but it came to signify the grant of a free inheritance in fee, respect being had to the perpetuity of the estate granted rather than to the feudal tenure. The feoffment was accompanied by livery of seisin. The conveyance by feoffment, with livery of seisin, has become infrequent, if not obsolete in England. It has not been used in practice in the U.S.
   

This entry contains material from Bouvier's Legal Dictionary, a work published in the 1850's.