Family and inheritance
Subtitle: rural society in Western Europe, 1200-1800
By: edited by Jack Goody, Joan Thirsk, E. P. Thompson.
Contributors: Goody, Jack.; Thirsk, Joan.; Thompson, E. P. 1924-
Series: Past and present publications
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 1976
Place of publication: Cambridge [Eng.]; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 421
Subjects: Land tenure -- Europe -- History -- Congresses; Inheritance and succession -- Europe -- History -- Congresses; Peasantry -- Europe -- History -- Congresses; Family -- Europe -- History -- Congresses
Description: This pioneering book examines different aspects of the inheritance customs in rural Western Europe in the pre-industrial age: for families and whole societies, the roles of lawyers in reducing them to a common system, and the recurring debate on the merits of various inheritance customs in shaping particular kinds of society. At first sight the study of inheritance customs may appear to be a dull affair, concerned with outdated practices of hair-splitting lawyers; certainly, little academic interest has been shown in the subject. Yet inheritance customs are vital means for the reproduction of the social system, by the transmission of property and other rights through the family. Various family structures and social arrangements are linked by different means of inheritance. This book will interest a wide range of historians, students, postgraduates and teachers alike, whether they are concerned with social, economic, demographic or legal history, in the medieval, early modern or modern periods, and whether their interests are directed to England or other countries of Western Europe; it will also be valuable to social anthropologists, sociologists and historians of ideas. A comprehensive glossary of technical terms has been added for the non-specialist.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Goody, J. Inheritance, property and women: some comparative considerations.; title: Ladurie, E. L. Family structures and inheritance customs in sixteenth-century France.; title: Berkner, L. K. Inheritance, land tenure and peasant family structure: a German regional comparison.; title: Sabean, D. Aspects of kinship behaviour and property in rural Western Europe before 1800.; title: Howell, C. Peasant inheritance customs in the Midlands, 1280-1700.; title: Spufford, M. Peasant inheritance customs and land distribution in Cambridgeshire from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries.; title: Thirsk, J. The European debate on customs of inheritance, 1500-1700.; title: Cooper, J. P. Patterns of inheritance and settlement by great landowners from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries.; title: Thompson, E. P. The grid of inheritance: a comment.; title: Kiernan, V. G. Private property in history.