Abstract
The following document is another example of a model charter from the Merovingian period of Frankish history (see Document 10). It represents a precarium, sometimes precaria, equivalent to a benefice, by which a church alienated the use of a property while retaining a distant right of ownership over it. This sort of conditional and nonhereditary land grant is considered to be the direct ancestor of the fief. The model charter, translated by D. Herlihy, comes from Formulae merovingici et karolini aevi, ed. Zeumer, p. 139.
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Recommended Readings
J. M. W. Bean, The Decline of English Feudalism (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1968).
Marion Gibbs, Feudal Order: A Study of the Origins and Development of English Feudal Society (New York: Schumann, 1953).
C. H. Haskins, Norman Institutions (New York: F. Ungar, 1960).
C. Warren Hollister, The Military Organization of Norman England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965).
F. Kern, Kingship and Law in the Middle Ages (Oxford: B. Blackwell, 1956).
Archibald Lewis, The Development of Southern French and Catalan Society, 718–1050 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1965).
Bryce Lyon, From Fief to Indenture: The Transition from Feudal to Non-Feudal Contract in Western Europe (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957).
F. W. Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond: Three Essays in the Early History of England (New York: Norton, 1966).
C. E. Odegaard, Vassi and Fideles in the Carolingian Empire (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1942).
Michael Powicke, Military Obligation in Medieval England: A Study in Liberty and Duty (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962).
Ivor J. Sanders, Feudal Military Service in England (London: Oxford University Press, 1956).
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© 1970 David Herlihy
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Herlihy, D. (1970). The Fief. In: Herlihy, D. (eds) The History of Feudalism. The Documentary History of Western Civilization. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-00253-5_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-00253-5_4
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-00255-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-00253-5
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