What is "common recovery"

Recovery \Re*cov"er*y\ (r?*k?v"?r*?), n.

1. The act of recovering, regaining, or retaking possession.

2. Restoration from sickness, weakness, faintness, or the like; restoration from a condition of mistortune, of fright, etc.

3. (Law) The obtaining in a suit at law of a right to something by a verdict and judgment of court.

4. The getting, or gaining, of something not previously had. [Obs.] ``Help be past recovery.''
   --Tusser.

5. In rowing, the act of regaining the proper position for making a new stroke.

6. Act of regaining the natural position after curtseying.

7. (Fencing, Sparring, etc.) Act of regaining the position of guard after making an attack.

   Common recovery (Law), a species of common assurance or mode of conveying lands by matter of record, through the forms of an action at law, formerly in frequent use, but now abolished or obsolete, both in England and America.
   --Burrill. Warren.

A common recovery was a legal proceeding in England that enabled lawyers to convert an entailed estate (a form of land ownership also called a fee tail) into absolute ownership, fee simple. This was accomplished through the use of a legal fiction devised by lawyers in the fifteenth century to prevent the enforcement of entails. It was based on the reasoning of the judges in a 1472 case usually known as Taltarum's Case.