Undivided Property among Brothers

From the late Middle Ages to modern times, undivided inheritance among brothers was a widespread yet remarkably understudied strategy for preserving property, wealth and power within families. Practised in settings as diverse as the European nobility in the late Middle Ages and the beginning of the early modern period, early modern Italian merchant dynasties and rural communities across south-eastern and Western Europe, it significantly shaped not only family relations but also broader social, economic and political structures. However, these different manifestations have largely been studied in isolation.

Bringing together these fragmented strands of scholarship for the first time, the volume offers a trans-epochal and multi-perspective approach to the undivided transmission of land, businesses, capital, authority and social networks to more than one male heir, usually several brothers. It explores how the competing and complementary logics relating to property, kinship and marriage influenced family strategies across different regions and historical periods, revealing both striking continuities and important local variations. By placing undivided property among brothers at the centre of the analysis, the volume sheds new light on the relationship between family organisation and the reproduction of wealth, connecting approaches from social and economic history with gender, family and kinship studies.