Merchet ( English merchet ) - in medieval England and Scotland, a fee paid personally by a dependent peasant ( villeins in England, a hazbendman in Scotland) to his lord in case his daughter marries.
The name comes from the Old Mercury - plural from the word "daughter". Merket was to be paid after the marriage of the peasant daughter and was one of the forms of expression of the personal dependence of the villean on the feudal lord . The legal justification of the seigneur’s right to receive a merket was the provision that a woman’s marriage and the move to her husband deprived the lord of one employee. Usually, merkette was paid by the father of the bride. Along with the principle of unlimited working duties , the payment of merkets was the main sign of the peasant's belonging to the category of feudal-dependent villans or hazbendmen .
In some regions (for example, Northumberland ), merklet remained for some time after the liberation of the peasants from personal dependence. In addition, despite the fact that the payment of the merket was a form of feudal dependence of the peasant, free landowners and knights who owned flax were also forced during the Middle Ages to obtain the consent of their overlord to the marriage of their daughters.
An analogue of the merket in France in the Middle Ages is the formary .
See also
- Geriot - payment of a personally dependent peasant to his feudal lord when he inherited after the death of his father
Literature
- Kosminsky, E. A. Research on the agrarian history of England of the 13th century - M. - L., 1947.
- Duncan, AAM Scotland: Making of the Kingdom. - Edinburgh, 1975, ISBN 978-0-901824-83-7
- Stenton, F. Anglo-Saxon England. - Oxford, 1971, ISBN 978-0-19-821716-9
- Poole, AL From Domesday Book to Magna Carta 1087-1216. - Oxford, 1956, ISBN 978-0-19-821707-7