Inheritances and Legal Arguments in Western France, 1050–1150

Abstract

Sometime around the year 1090, the monks of Saint-Aubin of Angers became involved in an unusually well-documented dispute when some vineyards previously quitclaimed to them by a man called Vivianus the Rich became the subject of a calumnia or challenge by Vivianus' wife, Aremburgis; his son and heir, Rigaldus; and his daughter's husband, Sevinus. These three calumniae were discusssed at Le Lude before two prominent lords of the region, whose joint decision favored the monks and apparently left the three challengers empty-handed. About three decades earlier, a similar outcome was reached in another well-documented case in which a lay person contested a gift that a relative of his had made to a religious establishment. When Nihardus became involved in a multi-faceted lawsuit concerning a mill that his kinsman Guismandus II had given to the abbey of Marmoutier, Count Guy of Vendôme (1050–66) and others decided in Vendôme at the dwelling of another lord of the region that the first of Nihardus' two calumniae regarding the disputed mill was unjust. In the late eleventh century, however, a third case of the same general type led to a different result. After a youth called Hugo of Sourches had challenged his father Burchardus' gift to the abbey of Saint-Vincent of Le Mans, Hamelinus the forester, Patricius Pertica, and the entire court of Sourches decided that while the monks should keep the gift of Burchardus, they should also give some money to Hugo.