The Fee Tail and the Common Recovery in Medieval England
1176–1502

A major study of landholding in medieval England based on original sources with an extensive index.

Joseph Biancalana (Author)

9780521806466, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 27 September 2001

520 pages
21.6 x 14 x 3.3 cm, 0.81 kg

'… a masterly survey of a wealth of unpublished primary materials regarding the origins and development of entails and the methods used to bar them.' Legal Studies

Fee tails were a basic building block for family landholding from the end of the thirteenth to the beginning of the twentieth century. The classic entail was an interest in land which was inalienable and could only pass at death by inheritance to the lineal heirs of the original grantee. Biancalana's study considers the origins, development and use of the entail in later medieval England, and the origins and early use of a reliable legal mechanism for the destruction of individual entails, the common recovery. He untangles the complex history surrounding medieval landholding in this detailed study of the fee tail, the product of extensive research in original sources. This book includes an extensive index of over three hundred common recoveries with discussions of their transactional contexts. A major work which will interest lawyers and historians.

Acknowledgments
List of abbreviations and abbreviated citations
Introduction
Part I. Fee Tails Before De Donis: 1. Grants in fee tail
2. The transformation of maritagium
3. Maritagium and fee tails in the King's court: the development of the formedon writs
Part II. The Growth of the 'Perpetual' Entail: 4. Reading De Donis
5. The statutory restraint on alienation and the descender writ
6. The duration of entails for reversions and remainders
Part III. Living with Entails: 7. The change from maritagium to jointure
8. The frequency and use of entails
Part IV. Barring the Enforcement Entails other than by Common Recovery: 9. The doctrine of assets by descent
10. The doctrine of collateral warranty
11. Barring entails by judgment
Part V. The Origin and Development of the Common Recovery: 12. The origin and growth of common recoveries
13. Development of procedure and doctrine
14. The double voucher recovery
Part VI. The Common Recovery in Operation: 15. The uses of recoveries
16. Social acceptance of the common recovery
Appendix to Part VI
Bibliography
Subject and selected persons index
Index to persons and places in appendix to Part VI.

Subject Areas: Legal history [LAZ], Early history: c 500 to c 1450/1500 [HBLC], European history [HBJD]