Matt McHaffie gives talk at CSIC

On 3 June,  gave an online paper at a workshop entitled, ‘Disputed Boundaries: Claiming the Land, Shaping the Landscape. From Medieval to Contemporary Times’. The workshop was organised out of the Instituto de Historia, Centro de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales (CSIC). The title of Dr McHaffie’s paper was ‘Warranty of Land in Western France: from the Charters to the Coutumiers (1050–1270)’. This talk provided an overview of some of the main findings of the short monograph that Dr McHaffie has been working on as a member of CLCLC, which examines the commitments (the warranties) that individuals undertake to protect their alienees from challenge when transferring property. The talk – and the wider study – used warranty of land as a case-study to rethink aspects of how customary law developed in the region of western France, drawing particular attention to the intersection between law and lordship.