Bad Blood: Patrilineal Inheritance and the Body of the Heir in William of Palerne

Abstract

William of Palerne foregrounds the basis of legal and social status inheritance in biological inheritance transmitted through blood while representing the social and political consequences of irregular and unpredictable bloodline transmission. The romance suggests the tenuousness of any reliance upon that transmission, because of the failure of continuity throughout the potential field of heritable heirs. This unreliability of patrilineal transmission in turn promotes the concept of a single legitimate heir—a "right" or "true" heir, as opposed to the more expansive legal definitions of heritability that prevailed in contemporary legal codes. William of Palerne's framing of this trope within the context of available, legally rightful, patrimonial representatives, whom the romance designates as clearly not "true" or acceptable heirs to the patriline, demonstrates its particular concern with the problem presented by multiple potential heirs within the patriline: how to recognize the best heir amongst a field of legitimate contenders. The text focuses upon the heir's dangerous singularity and vulnerability, and thus the risks it poses to a legitimate succession and patrilineal continuity. Moreover, the Middle English redaction's increased emphasis on themes of disguise, illusion, and misrecognition over its Old French source further suggests that while the true heir's body may be exceptional and marked as such, the polity is ill equipped to recognize it properly. Thus, the poem works to locate authority in a single legitimate body, but in so doing, it underscores the individual and collective dangers inherent in that singularity.