Entailment identity : Construction, transmission, perpetuation (14th-17th centuries)

Abstract

This book is about identity, one that no longer exists and can only be understood through an exercise in historicisation and otherness. Entailment identity refers to the way in which identity was built, transmitted and perpetuated through entails, a specific pre-modern legal institution, within corporate family bodies. How did the use of identity symbols, such as family names and arms, respond to the need to immortalise memory? What were the physical, mental, and moral identity requirements that defined the (im)perfect heir? What roles were assigned to archives, as places of memory, power and identity? In what ways was identity prolonged beyond death? How was identity built in community, and how did the entails benefit the community and, conversely, were they benefited by it?