Ultimogeniture, also known as
postremogeniture or
junior right, is the tradition of
inheritanceInheritance is the practice of passing on property, titles, debts, and obligations upon the death of an individual. It has long played an important role in human societies...
by the last-born of the entirety of, or a privileged position in, a
parentA parent is a mother or father; one who sires or gives birth to and/or nurtures and raises an offspring. The different roles of parents vary throughout the tree of life, and are especially complex in human culture.- Father :...
's
wealthWealth is an abundance of valuable resources or material possessions. The word is derived from the old English wela, which is from an Indo-European word stem...
,
estateAn estate is the net worth of a person at any point in time. It is the sum of a person's assets - legal rights, interests and entitlements to property of any kind - less all liabilities at that time. The issue is of special legal significance on a question of bankruptcy and death of the person...
or office. The tradition has been far rarer historically than
primogeniturePrimogeniture is the common law right of the first-born son to inherit the entire estate, to the exclusion of younger siblings. It is the tradition brought by the Normans to England in 1066. According to the Norman tradition, the first-born son inherited the entirety of a parent's wealth, estate,...
, inheritance by the first-born.
Ultimogeniture serves the circumstances where the youngest is "keeping the hearth", taking care of the parents and continuing at home, whereas elder children have had time to succeed "out in the world" and provide for themselves - or having received some of their share earlier, for example when marrying and founding an own family.
Ultimogeniture, also known as
postremogeniture or
junior right, is the tradition of
inheritanceInheritance is the practice of passing on property, titles, debts, and obligations upon the death of an individual. It has long played an important role in human societies...
by the last-born of the entirety of, or a privileged position in, a
parentA parent is a mother or father; one who sires or gives birth to and/or nurtures and raises an offspring. The different roles of parents vary throughout the tree of life, and are especially complex in human culture.- Father :...
's
wealthWealth is an abundance of valuable resources or material possessions. The word is derived from the old English wela, which is from an Indo-European word stem...
,
estateAn estate is the net worth of a person at any point in time. It is the sum of a person's assets - legal rights, interests and entitlements to property of any kind - less all liabilities at that time. The issue is of special legal significance on a question of bankruptcy and death of the person...
or office. The tradition has been far rarer historically than
primogeniturePrimogeniture is the common law right of the first-born son to inherit the entire estate, to the exclusion of younger siblings. It is the tradition brought by the Normans to England in 1066. According to the Norman tradition, the first-born son inherited the entirety of a parent's wealth, estate,...
, inheritance by the first-born.
Ultimogeniture serves the circumstances where the youngest is "keeping the hearth", taking care of the parents and continuing at home, whereas elder children have had time to succeed "out in the world" and provide for themselves - or having received some of their share earlier, for example when marrying and founding an own family. Remembering the then usual low age at death, the system has been relatively impractical for impartible inheritance during past centuries. Ultimogeniture has been more suitable to officeholders and owners who have themselves been adults already for several decades (such as monarchs who happen to be elderly) and are leaving children who are more or less all mature adults.
In medieval
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, the principle of patrilineal ultimogeniture (i.e. inheritance by the youngest surviving male child) was known as
Borough-English. In 1327, a court case found it to be the tradition in the
boroughA borough is an administrative division of various countries. In principle, the term borough designates a self-governing township although, in practice, official use of the term varies widely....
of
NottinghamNottingham is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands. It is located in the ceremonial county of Nottinghamshire, England and is one of only eight members of the English Core Cities Group....
, whereas in areas influenced by
Anglo-NormanThe Anglo-Normans were mainly the descendants of the Normans who ruled England following the Norman conquest by William of Normandy in 1066. A small number of Normans were already settled in England prior to the conquest...
culture, primogeniture was prevalent. The tradition was also found across many rural areas of England where lands were held in tenure by
socageThe term soke , at the time of the Norman Conquest of England generally denoted "jurisdiction", but due to vague usage probably lacks a single precise definition....
. It also occurred at
copyholdAt its origin in medieval England, copyhold tenure was tenure of land according to the custom of the manor, the "title deeds" being a copy of the record of the manor court....
manors in
SurreySurrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire, and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford...
,
MiddlesexMiddlesex is one of the historic counties of England and the second smallest by area. The low-lying county contained the wealthy and politically independent City of London on its southern boundary and was dominated by it from a very early time...
,
SuffolkSuffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...
and
SussexSussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is a historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...
.
In medieval Scandinavia, where
partible inheritancePartible inheritance is a general term applied to systems of inheritance in which property may be apportioned among heirs. It contrasts in particular with primogeniture, which requires that the whole inheritance passes to the eldest son, and with agnatic seniority where the succession passes to...
was the norm, there are indications that within that partibility tradition, youngest son had a privilege to receive the parent's house, or ancestral seat, or family manor. This may simply be a reflection of a practicality that elder brothers, when marrying, had often already acquired or built their own houses, and were not in need of another, whereas the youngest much more rarely had done so, either living with his own family at the ancestral house to care for parents, or having not yet grown old enough to marry.
The tradition of youngest having the privilege of receiving the ancestral seat was so strong that in some wealthy noble families with more manors than needed for each heir to have a place, the privilege of ultimogeniture was still practised. The privilege may have held some possibility to get a practically larger share than elder siblings, for example to compensate for grants the parents already routinely had made when providing benefits to young families of elder siblings. There are also indications that the ancestral seat could have passed to a daughter and her family, with sons receiving other properties. This may have been the consequence of another tradition, that daughters received family properties from
those held by motherA dowry is the money, goods, or estate that a woman brings to her husband in marriage. Compare bride price, which is paid to the bride's parents, and dower, which is property settled on the bride herself by the groom at the time of marriage. The same culture may simultaneously practice both dowry...
, and that sons received their inheritance from their father's familial holdings.
In the German Duchy of
Saxe-AltenburgSaxe-Altenburg was one of the Saxon duchies held by the Ernestine branch of the Wettin dynasty in present-day Thuringia.
-History:...
, land-holdings traditionally passed to the youngest son, who might then employ his older brothers as farm workers.
http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Saxe-Altenburg
In
Kyūshūor Kyushu is the 3rd-largest island of Japan and most southwesterly of its four main islands. Its alternate ancient names include Kyūkoku , Chinzei , and Tsukushi-no-shima...
and some other areas of
Japanis an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, property was traditionally apportioned by a modified version of ultimogeniture known as
masshi souzoku (末子相続). An estate was distributed equally among all sons, except that the youngest son received a double share as a reward for caring for the elderly parents in their last years. This tradition was prohibited by the
MeijiThe ', more commonly known as the Imperial or Meiji Constitution, was the fundamental law of the Empire of Japan from 29 November 1890 until 2 May 1947...
legal code in the late nineteenth century.
Ultimogeniture seems also to have been practised in the Ancient
Near EastNear East today is an ambiguous term that covers different countries for archeologists and historians, on one hand, and for political scientists, economists, and journalists, on the other...
. In early Greek myths, kingship was conferred by marriage to a tribal
nymphA nymph in Greek mythology is a female spirit typically associated with a particular location or landform. Other nymphs, always in the shape of young nubile maidens, were part of the retinue of a god, such as Dionysus, Hermes, or Pan, or a goddess, generally Artemis. Nymphs were the frequent target...
, who was selected by ultimogeniture or success in a race.
http://uk.geocities.com/lucath/myths.html Some scholars have noted that many Biblical characters are described as youngest sons or daughters and have inferred a prehistoric ultimogeniture tradition in the Holy Land.
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=729&letter=J
Ultimogeniture of the ancestral seat was also traditional in
MongoliaMongolia is a landlocked country in East and Central Asia. It borders Russia to the north and the People's Republic of China to the south, east and west. Although Mongolia does not share a border with Kazakhstan, its western-most point is only 24 miles from Kazakhstan's eastern tip. Ulan Bator,...
, where
Genghis KhanGenghis Khan , ; 1162–1227), born , was the founder, Khan and Khagan of the Mongol Empire, the largest contiguous empire in history....
passed the heart of the
Mongol EmpireThe Mongol Empire was an empire from the 13th and 14th century spanning from Eastern Europe across Asia. It is the largest contiguous empire in the history of the world...
to his fourth son,
ToluiTolui, also rendered Toluy, Tului or Tolui Khan , was the youngest son of Genghis Khan by Börte. His ulus, or territorial inheritance, at his father's death in 1227 was the homelands in Mongolia, and it was he who served as civil administrator in the time it took to confirm Ögedei as second Khagan...
http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200301/the.arts.of.the.mongols.htm as the empire with its conquests was to be partitioned, and in areas of
MyanmarBurma, officially the Union of Myanmar, is the largest country by geographical area in mainland Southeast Asia or Indochina. The country is bordered by China on the northeast, Laos on the east, Thailand on the southeast, Bangladesh on the west, India on the northwest and the Bay of Bengal to the...
and
ChinaChina is a cultural region, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
, where it is traditional among by the
RawangRawang may refer to:* Nung Rawang, an ethnic group based in Myanmar* Rawang, Selangor, Malaysia, the district capital of Gombak until 1997...
and T'ring people for older sons to move away on reaching maturity and for only the youngest son to remain and inherit.
http://victoria.linguistlist.org/~lapolla/rda/EO.htm
Like other forms of hereditary succession, ultimogeniture was laden with problems. Elder siblings deprived of property could potentially use their experience to coerce younger siblings into relinquishing some or all of their inheritance. In addition,
fratricideFratricide is the act of a person killing his or her brother....
, among other means, was often employed to eliminate potential challenges from younger siblings and their political supporters, as in the case of
Alexander the GreatAlexander III of Macedon, popularly known as Alexander the Great , was an Ancient Greek king of Macedon who created one of the largest empires in ancient history...
's succession to the Macedonian throne.
Other methods of succession
-
- Main article: Succession order
There are several other ways to organize hereditary succession. Some examples of widely used methods of succession:
- Primogeniture
Primogeniture is the common law right of the first-born son to inherit the entire estate, to the exclusion of younger siblings. It is the tradition brought by the Normans to England in 1066. According to the Norman tradition, the first-born son inherited the entirety of a parent's wealth, estate,...
- Seniority
Agnatic seniority is a patrilineal principle of inheritance where the order of succession to the throne prefers the monarch's younger brother over the monarch's own sons. A monarch's children succeed only after the males of the elder generation have all been exhausted...
- Tanistry
Tanistry was a Gaelic system for passing on titles and lands. In this system the Tanist was the office of heir-apparent, or second-in-command, among the Gaelic patrilineal dynasties of Ireland, Scotland and Man, to succeed to the chieftainship or to the kingship.-Origins:The Tanist was chosen from...
- Degree of kinship, i.e proximity of blood
Proximity of blood, or closeness in degree of kinship, is one of the ways to determine hereditary succession based on genealogy. It was at loggerheads with primogeniture in numerous medieval succession disputes....
- Elective monarchy
An elective monarchy is a monarchy ruled by someone, generally from a royal house, who is elected by a group.- Some examples from history :In the ancient Kingdom of Rome, the kings were elected by the Assemblies...
, election from among one family
- "Lottery
A lottery is a form of gambling which involves the drawing of lots for a prize. Some governments outlaw it, while others endorse it to the extent of organizing a national or state lottery...
"
- Rotation (Taking turns: seniority, tanistry, lottery and election are used and practical ways to organize rotation. Rotation may have aimed at some balance between branches of the House or the Clan.)
- Gavelkind
Gavelkind was a peculiar system of land tenure associated chiefly with the county of Kent, but found also in other parts of England. Its inheritance pattern bears resemblance to Salic patrimony and as such might testify in favour of a wider, probably ancient Germanic tradition.In Kent all land was...