Cartulary of Saint Trond:
The Inheritance Laws of Liège and Brusthem, 1175
While primogeniture was becoming the rule in England, Flanders retained the old
system of division of the property of a dead man. Relief, protection of the interests of
the widow, mortgages, and other matters pertaining to inheritance were all determined by
this law which formed part of a grant of liberty by Gerard, Count of Loos, to the citizens
of Brusthem. This grant was modeled on a charter previously granted to the city of Liège.
C.III. If any one after the death of his ancestor should seek his legacy
from the lord of that inheritance, he who seeks the inheritance shall give to the lord as
much tax as the desired land yields in money as land tax. If the heir seeks his legacy
within a year and a day, the lord shall have nothing outstanding against that property.
But if the heir does not claim within the specified time, the lord shall inquire about the
heir from the reeve of the land. If he should come and, in seeking his heritage, pay what
is required of him according to the highest tax which is paid in money as land tax, when
he takes up his legacy he shall go free. But if the heir should neglect to come to seek
his heritage, the lord ought to wait for another year and a day. And then if he does not
come before this time the reeve will consider the lord able to do as he pleases with the
land.
C.IX. Concerning pledges of possessions and inheritances this shall be the law:
that none may lawfully take possession of house and hereditament except the reeve and
judges witness the transaction. And, on the contrary, no one may contest, except on the
testimony of the same reeve and judges, any such pledge or at any time have money under
the name of a pledge on any one's property.
C.XII. The wife, after her husband's death, shall have lawful possession of
everything, home and other possessions, even though she has not been put in possession by
her husband, and even though she has no heir by him. Even if an heir be left her by her
dead husband, she may give or sell to whomsoever she pleases the inheritance which her
husband has left as though he had no heir. But when he has an heir, no man may seek to
marry her to obtain it, nor may she give away or diminish the inheritance of a son or
daughter, but she shall remain content with the usufruct during her lifetime. Even if the
widow remain unmarried, it shall not be lawful for her to sell or take unlawful possession
of the children's inheritance, unless she can show clear necessity by reason of poverty,
or because the heir or heirs refuse to supply her with the necessities of life. And be it
known that what the wife cannot do is likewise illicit for the husband. If parents, both
living, should give some of their property or possessions to their sons or daughters by
marriage, they may arbitrarily give one more and another less, as they wish. This may not
be done if one or the other, father or mother, be dead. But let the whole inheritance be
divided among all the heirs. And as the wife, on the death of her husband, gains lawful
possession of all his goods and property, so too with regard to the possessions of the
wife, the same law should prevail. If any one shall have a possession or inheritance, he
may lawfully pass over all his relatives and mortgage it to strangers. But if he should
wish to sell it, he ought first to offer it in the presence of witnesses to his relative,
and if the relative does not buy it when it is offered, the vender may not afterwards
justly reclaim it. And he who shall sell an inheritance shall give to the purchaser a
surety who shall take care of the transferred inheritance for a year and a day. The buyer
shall then hold that possession in peace. From the time of the giving of this pledge the
vender ought to be free, and the other ought to hold his property in perpetual peace. If,
however, after one relative has inherited the property, a closer relative shall reclaim it
from the buyer within the year, the first relative must repay the full price paid him for
the property and get back his relative's inheritance. And if the buyer gets back the full
price which he paid for the inheritance, then the vender shall be free from the pledge he
has given.
Source:
C. Piot, ed., Cartulaire de l'Abbaye de Saint-Trond, (Brussels: Academie Royale
de Belgique, 1870), pp. 124-127; reprinted in Roy C. Cave & Herbert H. Coulson, A
Source Book for Medieval Economic History, (Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Co., 1936;
reprint ed., New York: Biblo & Tannen, 1965), pp. 341-343.
Scanned by Jerome S. Arkenberg, Cal. State Fullerton. The text has been modernized by
Prof. Arkenberg.
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