Under Brehon law, gavelkind, a form of partible inheritance, [1] was the system of land inheritance. The Normans called the Irish inheritance law the name gavelkind because of its apparent similarity to Jute inheritance in Kent.
Upon the death of a landholder, his land was divided equally among his sons. The sons of concubines, if accepted by the father as being his sons, had the same rights of inheritance as their legitimately-born brothers. The adopted sons of the landholder, if any, could also receive a share of his lands only if the landholder had made specific and public provision before his death, and the extent of land thus received by an adopted son was not necessarily equal to that received by the landholder's own sons.
While sons received equal shares of the land, the father often prescribed the division by stating which parcel of land was to go to which son. Another known custom was for the youngest son to divide the land into equal parts and for his brothers to choose their parcels. The eldest chose first, followed by the second and so on until the youngest had received the remaining land.
The purpose of the system was to ensure equitable division of the land.
If a land-holder had no sons, his widow and unwed daughters, if any, would collectively hold a life interest on the entire land. Their rights on the produce of the land would lapse upon their marriage or death, as the case may be. Upon the last such lapse of usufruct, the land would devolve upon the agnatic kin of the last male landholder.
In 1703, in the reign of Queen Anne, a law was enacted (2 Anne c. 6 (I)) by the Irish parliament, which is commonly known as the Gavelkind Act . [2] The law made sectarian affiliation a primary determinant of the inheritance of land. When a Catholic died, his estate would normally be divided equally among his sons. However, a eldest son who converted to the Protestant faith would inherit all of the land alone, and all of his Catholic brothers would be disinherited. The law was intended to put land into the hands of Protestants and to reduce the size and therefore the influence of Catholic landed estates. [2]
Copyhold was a form of customary land ownership common from the Late Middle Ages into modern times in England. The name for this type of land tenure is derived from the act of giving a copy of the relevant title deed that is recorded in the manorial court roll to the tenant; not the actual land deed itself. The legal owner of the manor land remained the mesne lord, who was legally the copyholder, according to the titles and customs written down in the manorial roll. In return for being given land, a copyhold tenant was required to carry out specific manorial duties or services. The specific rights and duties of copyhold tenants varied greatly from one manor to another and many were established by custom. By the 19th century, many customary duties had been replaced with the payment of rent.
Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, KG was an English nobleman, politician and poet. He was one of the founders of English Renaissance poetry and was the last known person to have been executed at the insistence of King Henry VIII. His name is usually associated in literature with that of the poet Sir Thomas Wyatt. Owing largely to the powerful position of his father Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, Henry took a prominent part in court life, and served as a soldier both in France and in Scotland. He was a man of reckless temper, which involved him in many quarrels, and finally brought upon him the wrath of the ageing Henry VIII. He was arrested, tried for treason and beheaded on Tower Hill.
Primogeniture is the right, by law or custom, of the firstborn legitimate child to inherit the parent's entire or main estate in preference to shared inheritance among all or some children, any illegitimate child or any collateral relative. In most contexts, it means the inheritance of the firstborn son ; it can also mean by the firstborn daughter, or firstborn child.
The Popery Act of 1704 required land owned by Roman Catholics to be divided equally between all a landholder's sons, both legitimate and illegitimate, on his death. This had formerly been normal under the law of gavelkind, a law abolished by the Dublin administration in 1604. Known as sub-division, this inheritance practice continued by tradition until the middle of the 19th century.
An appanage, or apanage, is the grant of an estate, title, office or other thing of value to a younger child of a monarch, who would otherwise have no inheritance under the system of primogeniture. It was common in much of Europe.
Gavelkind was a system of land tenure chiefly associated with the Celtic law in Ireland and Wales and with the legal traditions of the English county of Kent.
Charles Calvert, 3rd Baron Baltimore was an English peer and colonial administrator. He inherited the province of Maryland in 1675 upon the death of his father, Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore. He had been his father's Deputy Governor since 1661 when he arrived in the colony at the age of 24. However, Charles left Maryland for England in 1684 and would never return. The events following the Glorious Revolution in England in 1688 would cost Calvert his title to Maryland; in 1689 the royal charter to the colony was withdrawn, leading to direct rule by the British Crown. Calvert's political problems were largely caused by his Roman Catholic faith which was at odds with the established Church of England.
An Act to prevent the further Growth of Popery was an Act of the Parliament of Ireland that was passed in 1704 designed to suppress Roman Catholicism in Ireland ("Popery"). William Edward Hartpole Lecky called it the most notorious of the Irish Penal Laws.
The Protestant Ascendancy was the sociopolitical and economical domination of Ireland between the 17th and early 20th centuries by a small Anglican ruling class, whose members consisted of landowners, politicians, clergymen, military officers and other prominent professions. They were either members of the Church of Ireland or the Church of England and wielded a disproportionate amount of social, cultural and political influence in Ireland. The Ascendancy existed as a result of British rule in Ireland, as land confiscated from the Irish Catholic aristocracy was awarded by the Crown to Protestant settlers from Great Britain.
The Duchy of Silesia with its capital at Wrocław was a medieval duchy located in the historic Silesian region of Poland. Soon after it was formed under the Piast dynasty in 1138, it fragmented into various Silesian duchies. In 1327, the remaining Duchy of Wrocław as well as most other duchies ruled by the Silesian Piasts passed to the Kingdom of Bohemia as Duchies of Silesia. The acquisition was completed when King Casimir III the Great of Poland renounced his rights to Silesia in the 1335 Treaty of Trentschin.
Partible inheritance, sometimes also called partitive, is a system of inheritance in which property is apportioned among heirs. It contrasts in particular with primogeniture, which was common in feudal society and requires that the whole or most of the inheritance passes to the eldest son, and with agnatic seniority, which requires the succession to pass to next senior male.
Forced heirship is a form of testate partible inheritance which mandates how the deceased's estate is to be disposed and which tends to guarantee an inheritance for family of the deceased.
Frederick Philipse, first Lord of the Manor of Philipseborough and patriarch of the Philipse family, was a Dutch immigrant to North America of Bohemian heritage. A merchant, he arrived in America as early as 1653. In 1662, he married Margaret Hardenbrook de Vries, a wealthy and driven widow. Together, and variously in league with slavers, pirates, and other undesirables alongside the prominent and respectable, the couple amassed a fortune.
An order, line or right of succession is the line of individuals necessitated to hold a high office when it becomes vacated, such as head of state or an honour such as a title of nobility. This sequence may be regulated through descent or by statute.
Events from the year 1703 in Ireland.
Duke Maximilian William of Brunswick-Lüneburg, often called Max, was a member of the House of Hanover who served as an Imperial Field Marshal.
Connor O'Brien, King of Thomond was the second to last King of Thomond.
Events from the year 1704 in Ireland.
Historical inheritance systems are different systems of inheritance among various people.
Sir Theobald (Toby) Butler (1650–1721) was a leading barrister and politician in late seventeenth-century Ireland, who held office as Solicitor General for Ireland. He is mainly remembered for framing the civil articles of the Treaty of Limerick, and for his eloquent but unsuccessful plea to the Irish House of Commons against the passing of the Popery Act of 1703, which allowed any Protestant son of a Roman Catholic landowner to prevent his Catholic brothers from inheriting the family property. He was a much loved "character" in Dublin, and his great popularity shielded him from the penalties that he might otherwise have suffered as a result of his religious beliefs. Only his few enemies attacked him for his willingness to come to an accommodation with the new regime in order to preserve his own property.