FRANK Language, Lingua Franca, a kind of jargon spoken on the Mediterranean, and particularly throughout the coasts and ports of the Levant, composed of Italian, Spanish, French, Romaic Greek, and other languages.

Frank, or Franc, an ancient coin, either of gold or silver, struck and current in France. The value of the gold franc was something more than that of the gold crown; but it has been long out of use, though the name is still retained as the name of a money of accounts, in which sense it is equivalent to the livre, or twenty sols.

Frank, or Franc, meaning literally free from charges and impositions, or exempt from public taxes, has various significations in the ancient English customs.

FR4Nκ-Almoigne (libera eleemosyna), or free alms, a tenure of a spiritual nature, by which a religious corporation, aggregate or sole, holds lands of the donor granted to them and their successors for ever. The service which they were bound to render for these lands was not definitively stated; but only in general they were to pray for the souls of the donor and his heirs, dead or alive. Hence they did no fealty, which is incident to all other services, because this religious service was of a higher and more exalted nature. This is the tenure by which almost all the ancient monasteries and religious houses held their lands, and by which also the parochial clergy, and many ecclesiastical and eleemosynary foundations, hold them at this day. But the nature of the service was altered at the Reformation, and made conformable to the reformed doctrines of the church of England. It was an old Saxon tenure; and continued under the Norman domination, from the veneration paid to religious institutions. This was also the reason why tenants in frank-almoigne were exempted from all other services except the trinoda necessitas, of repairing the highways, building castles, and repelling invasions, just as the Druids, amongst the ancient Britons, had omnium rerum immunitatem. And even at present this is a tenure of a very different nature from all others, being not in the least feudal, but merely spiritual; for, if the service be neglected, the law gives no remedy by distress, or otherwise, to the lord of whom the lands are holden, but merely enters complaint to the ordinary or visitor to correct it.

Frank- Chase is defined to be a liberty of free chase, by which persons who possess lands within the compass of the same are prohibited from cutting down wood, &c. out of the view of the forester.

Frank-Fcb signifies the same thing as holding lands and tenements in fee simple; that is, to any person and his heirs, and not by such service as is required by ancient demesne, but is pleaded at common law.

Frank- Law, a word applied to the free and common law of the land, or the benefit which a person has by it.

F 'rank- Marriage, in Law, is where tenements are given by one man to another, together with a wife, who is the daughter or cousin of the donor, to hold in frank-marriage. By such a gift, although nothing but the word frank-marriage is expressed, the donees have the tenements to themselves and the heirs; that is, they are tenants in special tail. For the word frank-marriage not only denotes ex vi termini, an inheritance, like the word frank-almoigne, but likewise limits that inheritance, supplying not only words of descent, but also of procreation. Such donees in frank-marriage are liable to no service but fealty; for a rent reserved therein is void until the fourth degree of consanguinity be past between the issues of the donor and donee.

FRΛNK-Pledye, in Law, signifies a pledge or surety fol the behaviour of freemen.