On Saturday, January 21, 2023 at 5:07:15 PM UTC-8, Darrell E. Larocque wrote:
Hello all!
When it comes to the inheritance of lands, aren't the children of the father the first ones to inherit lands in order or divided between them? For example, if the only son dies, would the eldest daughter then inherit the lands and then to her children,
or would the younger daughter be the next one in line for inheritance upon the death of the eldest daughter? For sons it makes sense, but would daughters be different?
In medieval England, with respect to land inheritance, it passed to 1) sons, individually, in order of birth; 2) daughters, jointly; 3) full brothers, individually, in order of birth; 4) full sisters, jointly; 5) full-uncles, in order of birth, 6) full,
aunts, jointly, etc.
If any of the relevant individuals had issue, then the same rules would apply to their heirs, and inheritance would only pass to their siblings, etc., after their bloodline died out - a daughter would take precedence over a brother. If a jointly-holding
female died with issue, the same applies, either a single son inheriting his jointly-held share, of all daughters jpintly holding their mother's jointly held share - it is not uncommon seeing something like someone holding a 12th of a manor, if they were
the heir of one of two daughters of one of six daughters of the original holder. If a jointly holding sister or her heir(s) died without issue of her body, their share would be redistributed among the other coheiresses. This can get tricky. I tracked
one case where a daughter sold her 4th, only to have her sister die without issue and she ended up recieving a 3rd of that sister's 4th, hence a 12th, which then passed to her heirs.
Also, important for your question, half-siblings were excluded - while it didn't matter who was parent of the deceased's children, if the inheritance instead went to a sibling or uncle/aunt, then only full siblings in the prior generations were
considered. (Note, I have seen examples where this half-sibling exclusion was was ignored, and the law is always what you can get away with, so if it wasn't challenged by the next heir, then it didn't matter).
One should also bear in mind, though, that there were ways to bypass the standard inheritance, and sometimes when a line was long enough that the precise details could be obfuscated, nobody noticed that the legal pattern wasn't being followed. Also
sometimes what looks like inheritance was an enfeoffment or partition, operating outside the rules of inheritance.
I am asking because I suspect that John de Lisle was married twice. Here is the inheritance, provided by A History of the County of Hampshire, vol. 4:
NICHOLAS AND HIS SON, JOHN, WHO DIED WITH NO ISSUE: "Sir John left a son, Sir Nicholas Lisle, whose will was proved in 1506. He was succeeded by his son Sir John, whose will, as well as that of his wife Mary, was proved in 1524. (fn. 40) This Sir John,
who left no issue, entailed the majority of his estates on his cousin, Lancelot Lisle, but left Thruxton after the death of his wife to his right heirs."
OK, right here we see a deviation. When it says that he 'entailed the majority of his estates on his cousin', that is stating that he legally changed the inheritance from the default. When someone did this, they could redefine the whole thing, and for
example, favor one sister over another.
ELEANOR, WHO MARRIED JOHN KINGSTON, AND DAUGHTER MARY KINGSTON, WHO DIED WITH NO ISSUE: "These were the children of his sister Eleanor wife of John Kingston. Mary Kingston, daughter of John and Eleanor, who by the death of her brothers John and
Nicholas became heir general of the Lisles of Wootton, married a Sir Thomas Lisle and died in 1539 leaving no issue."
AGNES, WHO MARRIED JOHN PHILPOT, AND MARGARET, WHO MARRIED JOHN ROGERS: "On the death of her [Mary Kingston] husband, three years later, Thruxton reverted to the heirs of Agnes sister of the above-mentioned Sir Nicholas Lisle and wife of John Philpot
of Compton, and co-heir of the Lisles of Wootton with her sister Margaret wife of John Rogers (vide infra)."
PHILPOT: "In this way the manor passed to the family of Philpot. Thomas Philpot, great-grandson of John and Elizabeth, (fn. 44) who was vouched at a recovery in 1556."
https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/hants/vol4/pp387-391
It looks to me like one of three things happened. Either 1) John entailed the inheritance to Lancelot, with remainder, were Lancelot to die without heirs, to his sister Mary, and in defult of her issue, to his sister Agnes and her heirs, or similarly, so
that the sisters inherited individually in this order, or 2) John gifted the manor in question to Eleanor, as a marriage settlement or similar, so it passed to Eleanor by means other than inheritance, but then when she died it passed by inheritance to
Agnes, or 3) the manor and others legally went jointly to Eleanor and Agnes, but they reached an agreement to partition their jointly-held manors, with Eleanor taking some, and Agnes others, so then you see the Kingstons holding alone, but then Eleanor's
line died out and her partitioned share reverted to Agnes.
While there are deviations from what one would expect of default inheritance, they are not those associated with half-sibling relationships.
taf
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