Majorat

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Majorate or right of elders denotes a medieval law of inheritance in which a property or property or part of it was converted in the form of a foundation into a majorate property that was to be inherited and preserved as a whole by the eldest son ( primogeniture ); if there was no son, the majorate, also known as the elders ' estate , fell to the closest male relative, or to the eldest relative with the same degree of relationship. The heir became the new lord of the majorate and paid the younger sons and daughters of the testator at most a small amount of maintenance (example: Majorate Bärsdorf ). A similar institution of inheritance law was the entails ("to be left in good hands"), which was passed on by way of a majorate. Both institutions come from France , where they were clearly regulated by law and were particularly popular in Europe from 1800 under Napoleon .

function

The establishment of a majorate was intended to prevent the division and fragmentation, especially of land holdings. It could only be set up if the owner could fully dispose of his goods ( personal property ), but not if it was a fiefdom whose passing on was bound to the feudal law . Once the majorate was founded, its owners were subject to the restriction that they could only sell the property with the consent of all male descendants; for this reason, loans were seldom granted on majorats.

Artistic implementations

The story Das Majorat by ETA Hoffmann from 1817 describes the conditions and decline of a noble family after the father converted the ancestral seat of his family into a Majorat. The novella Die Majoratsherren by Achim von Arnim (1818) is about a young Majoratsherr, his deceased predecessor and the future Majoratsherr. In 1985 the Swedish writer Alfred von Hedenstjerna wrote the novella Der Majoratsherr von Halleborg ; it was filmed in 1943 by Hans Deppe under the title Der Majoratsherr .

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b William Burge: The creation of majorats. Rules respecting them. Abrogation of them. In: Derselbe: Commentaries on Colonial and Foreign Laws Generally - And in Their Conflict with Each Other - and with the Law of England. Volume 2. Saunders and Benning, 1838, pp. 207–217 (English; full text in the Google book search).
  2. ↑ Lexicon entry: Majorat. In: Adelsrecht.de . November 21, 2002, accessed May 2, 2020.