Law. [a. AF. taylé, tailé = OF. taillié, taillé, pa. pple. of taillier to cut, shape, hence, to fix the precise form of, to limit, TAIL v.2; the final e having become mute in ME. as in assign, avowe sbs., and some other legal terms.]
Of a fee or freehold estate (= AF. fee taylé, med. Anglo-L. feodum tāliātum): Limited and regulated as to its tenure and inheritance by conditions fixed by the donor: thus distinguished from fee simple or absolute ownership: see quot. 1592. See also FEE-TAIL, CONDITIONAL a. 7.
[1284. De Banco Roll, Mich. 11–12 Edw. I. m. 70 d. Quod predicta Emma non habuit in predictis tenementis nisi feodum talliatum secundum formam donacionis predicte.
1285. Stat. Westm., II. (13 Edw. I.) c. 4. Tenentes in maritagium per Legem Anglie, vel ad terminum vite, vel per feodum talliatum. [tr. 1543 tenantes in free maryage, by the lawe of Englande, or for terme of lyfe, or in fee taile.]
1292. Britton, II. iii. § 9. Des queus douns aucuns sount condicionels et dount le fee est taylé et en pendaunt jekes autaunt qe cele chose aveigne ou cele.
1294. Year bks., 21–2 Edw. I. (Rolls, 1873), 641. Kar le estatut ‘quia emptores terrarum &c.’ est entendu la ou home feffe un autre en fee pur, e nent de fee tayle.]
1473. Rolls of Parlt., VI. 81/1. That this Acte … extend not … to Sir Thomas Bourghchier Knyght, ne to his heires masles of his body lawfully begoten,… duryng the seid astate Taille, of, to, or for any Graunte or Grauntes unto hym made.
1473–5. in Calr. Proc. Chanc. Q. Eliz. (1830), II. Pref. 58. To make and delyvere unto her a lawefull estate tayle of alle the forseid landes.
1592. West, 1st Pt. Symbol., 40 B. A perticuler estate of inheritance, is an estate taile or limited: that is an estate expressing in certaine, whose issue and of what Sexe shall inherite; and it is generall or speciall.
1628. Coke, On Litt., 26. If lands bee giuen to the husband & the wife, and to the heires which the husband shall beget on the body of the wife, in this case both of them haue an estate taile.
1766. Blackstone, Comm., II. vii. 112.
1818. Cruise, Digest (ed. 2), I. 90. Estates tail, like estates in fee simple, have certain incidents annexed to them, which cannot be restrained by any proviso or condition whatever.
1895. Pollock & Maitl., Hist. Eng. Law, II. II. iv. § 1. 19. In 1285 the first chapter of the Second Statute of Westminster, the famous De donis conditionalibus, laid down a new rule. The ‘conditional fee’ of former times became known as a fee tail (Lat. feodum talliatum, Fr. fee taillé) … and about the same time the term fee simple was adopted to describe the estate which a man has who holds ‘to him and his heirs.’
