Report, if you have a problem with this page“ Mortmain is an old French word that should be tattooed on the inside of any historical novelist's skull. This wonderful and terrible word means “dead hand.” Its definition is: “The influence of the past regarded as controlling the present.” (It is also used as a legal term with the same basic meaning. ”
James Alexander Thom
From : The Art and Craft of Writing Historical Fiction: Researching and Writing Historical Fiction
