ABSTRACT
The inheritance of fiefs is a crucial issue in Raoul de Cambrai. Representing the inheritance of fiefs as an important arena of conflict, the poem dramatises both the flexibility of a legal culture or discourse that included different models of the fief and the contradictions of a political formation that could reproduce itself only through strategies that included disinheritance as well as inheritance. The conflict over the king's gift to Giboin remains dormant for many years but finally erupts after Raoul comes of age and does service to the king. Two different proprietary models represent the fief as property to which a person can claim proprietary right. They are the heritable estate model and the life-estate model. The exchange between lord and man, however, is construed differently under each of the different personal models of the fief.
