customary law, aviticity, power of life/death, new gift
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Traditions of social living together which were formed spontaneously. If someone breaks them the society will punish that individual. At first these laws were unwritten, but it is all the same whether they are written down or not. The essence of customary law is that it is old and good, that is it has been existing for such a long time that everyone thinks it is natural and well proved. With the passage of time customary law can include decretes and privileges. After a time it can also be included in regular law.
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aviticity
Customary laws that regulated the inheritance and alienation of ancient noblemen's estates. These laws were inclined to preserve clan possessions. In concert with this the real owner of the estate was the clan, that is the ancestor who obtained the estate and all of his descendant on the male line - even if centuries had passed between the acquisition of the estate and the inheritance. Although the estate was inherited by the sons of the family in the same proportion, then their sons became the legal heirs, but in the lack of male heirs the estate was inherited by the male members of the side branches of the family. Their proportion depended on the number of surviving branches. Ancient estates could be alienated only if the whole clan agreed to it. According to contemporary law aviticity concerned only landed property. Aviticity was not introduced by the 1351 laws, it was just extended over each member of the unified noblity.
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power of life and death
A privileged right given to certain landowners by the king, according to which the landlords could arrest, torture or kill criminal caught within the border of their estates without initiating the law court in the matter. The person who received such a privileged right could practise it on all of his estates. Besides privileged landowners only the authorities of the county and the county ispán [bailiff] could practise this right. Its Hungarian name refers to this fact: 'freedom of the ispán [bailiff]'. The person who had the power of life and death could set up gallows, a wheel or other instruments of torture. The power of life and death was not confined to holding law court sessions, there the landlord could make sentences over his own villeins or in smaller cases.The first donations of power of life and death took place during the reign of Charles I.
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new gift
The approval or redonation of an already donated land possession till 1343. From 1343 to the 1420s it is a new type of royal gifts. The donated estate could be inherited by the male descendants of the direct line of the person, whose name is written in the deed of gift. The system of the new gift broke the old tradition, according to which the brothers and those descendants could also inherit the estate. Since the end of Sigismund's reign it was used in the sense before 1343.
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