The descent of family land in later Anglo-Saxon England*

Abstract

This article looks beyond the oft-cited but rarely analysed notion that land descended within Anglo-Saxon kin groups via some form of ‘customary descent’, to examine what the sources actually tell us about how individuals passed land between the generations. Having demonstrated the potential flexibility and complexity of practice, it argues that individuals and families attempted to assure the successful implementation of complicated arrangements by using the local shire and hundred meetings of later Anglo-Saxon England as forums for negotiating and publicizing decisions about the descent of family property.

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