Daughters' quarter

The daughters' quarter, also known as filial quarter (

Latin: quarta filialis), was the legal doctrine that regulated the right of a Hungarian nobleman

's daughter to inherit her father's property.

Origins

One of the laws of the first

Lex Falcidia in the Codex Theodosianus gave most probably rise to the formation of the new legal doctrine.^[2] Rady also proposes that churchmen must have played a preeminent role in its development, because they could recall "fathers to their duties" and specify their obligations towards their children, although the jurisdiction of ecclesiastical courts in cases involving real estates was limited.^[3]

Development

The

royal servant who died without a male heir, but had at least one daughter could only freely will three quarters of his possessions, because one quarter was due to her.^[4] The daughters' quarter did not depend of the number of daughters, because a nobleman's daughters were jointly entitled to a quarter of their father's property.^[2]

The daughters' quarter was primarily to be paid in cash or moveable goods.[3]^[5] In 1290, a law explicitly prohibited that a nobleman's estates could be seized by another nobleman who was not a member of his clan through marrying a daughter entitled to the daughters' quarter.^[6] The amount payable to the daughters was determined in accordance with a set of rules known as "commun estimation", which always gave a value lower than the market price.^[3] If a nobleman's male heirs could not pay off his daughter in moveables, they were entitled to compensate her in land, stipulating the right to redeem it at a prearranged price.^[3]