Presidential Address: Feudal Society and the Family in Early Medieval England: II. Notions of Patrimony
J. C. Holt
Notions are potent but nebulous, often direct and determining in their effect themselves indeterminate origin structure. My title is designed to circumvent two lines of thought which have largely circumscribed the study inheritance eleventh twelfth centuries hitherto. First, I shall say something here there about succession, it will be only a subsidiary part argument. Heritable was not diminished by unsettled rules succession. On contrary, century as thirteenth, emphasised nourished claims counter-claims competitors. In such disputes opposing arguments were couched common language; language, therefore, that my first concern. Second, for this same reason also pay scant attention jurisdictional aspects inheritance. To sure, post-Conquest England amounted claim upon lord; heritable realised when lord admitted it; no concession tenant secure could made until his had confirmed it.
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