The "dead hands" were, according to the religious, the goods and lands belonging to God. That could not be fixed by having a specific destination that was heaven. Originally it referred to both civil and ecclesiastical property, although it was used mainly to signify ecclesiastical property.
Thus, the dead hands were the property of the Catholic Church and religious orders that were under the protection of the Hispanic Monarchy. Neither bishops, abbots and priors could alienate them. The ecclesiastical authorities that did so could be suspended to deification and even excommunicated. Besides, the one who acquired those goods lost them; you could only proceed legally against the person who had bought or sold them, never against the Church.
With the arrival of the enlightened criticism and the era of (enlightened despotism) began attempts of confiscation, which sometimes remained only in projects or executed in a short measure, granted by the Pope and the local clergy as a contribution to maintenance of a monarchy in precarious financial situation (Treaty of the amortization royalty and the so-called disentailment of Carlos IV, in Spain). It will not be until the liberal revolution that the disentailment program is fulfilled in all its extension, as occurred during the [[French Revolution] (1789) or the government of Mendizábal (1835), in Spain. This last program did not fulfill its objective of creating a middle class, since it only favored the accumulation of property by an oligarchy, with great losses of cultural treasures, both buildings and works of art.
The absence of a transparent system for the management and disentailment of assets (today economic assets) of the Church has produced many criticisms of the church, to the point that the Italian justice accuses the bank known as the Institute for the Religious Works to intentionally violate European regulations designed to prevent money laundering in 2010. Bibliography
wiki
