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5 - Laypeople and Property

from Part II - The Laity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 December 2022

Warren C. Brown
Affiliation:
California Institute of Technology
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Summary

The formulas show us property transactions among laypeople that are fundamentally similar to those between laypeople and ecclesiastical institutions that we see in the extant charters. Laypeople sold or gave property to each other, or exchanged it with each other, and they used documents to do it. However, the formulas broaden our view of the sorts of transactions laypeople engaged in and who engaged in them. For example, different kinds of property changed hands: not simply arable but also vineyards, plots of land within cities, and even townhouses. People used property as security for loans. Laypeople also arranged to hold property as benefices, or as so-called precarial grants, not only from churches/monasteries or kings but also from each other. One person used a benefice arrangement with a king to pass property to a chosen heir, in much the same way as others did with monasteries. The evidence in the formulas for these sorts of arrangements suggests that the property arrangements between lay families and ecclesiastical institutions or kings that dominate the charter record reflect only part of a larger culture, in which a variety of people in the Carolingian world used property to create and maintain ties with each other.

Type
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Beyond the Monastery Walls
Lay Men and Women in Early Medieval Legal Formularies
, pp. 151 - 175
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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  • Laypeople and Property
  • Warren C. Brown, California Institute of Technology
  • Book: Beyond the Monastery Walls
  • Online publication: 09 December 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108855426.007
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  • Laypeople and Property
  • Warren C. Brown, California Institute of Technology
  • Book: Beyond the Monastery Walls
  • Online publication: 09 December 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108855426.007
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Laypeople and Property
  • Warren C. Brown, California Institute of Technology
  • Book: Beyond the Monastery Walls
  • Online publication: 09 December 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108855426.007
Available formats
×