Definition
Chemerage is an old French legal term referring to the privilege or prerogative of the eldest. In feudal property and inheritance law, it denoted the preferential right or advantage accorded to the eldest child — typically the eldest son — over younger siblings in matters of succession, inheritance, or the holding of a feudal tenure. It is a provincial term from old French law and has no direct counterpart in modern common law systems.
Common Confusion
Chemerage is closely related to, but distinct from, primogeniture. Primogeniture is the broader rule of succession by which the eldest child (or eldest son) inherits the whole of an estate to the exclusion of younger children. Chemerage refers specifically to the privilege or prerogative that attaches to the eldest as a matter of status or right within a feudal framework — it is the entitlement itself, not merely the inheritance rule that produces it. A researcher encountering the term in feudal tenure documents should not assume it refers exclusively to land inheritance; it may describe any superior right or prerogative belonging to the eldest in a given provincial context.
Why It Matters in Research
Chemerage appears almost exclusively in historical materials concerning old French feudal law and is unlikely to surface in English common law sources. Researchers working with translated French legal texts, treatises on feudal tenure, or comparative legal history may encounter it, but it will rarely appear in primary sources from English or American jurisdictions.
The principal research trap is terminological: because chemerage and primogeniture overlap substantially in effect, historical writers sometimes used them interchangeably. A researcher should attend carefully to whether a source is describing the rule of inheritance (primogeniture) or the privileged status of the eldest heir as a recognized legal capacity (chemerage). The distinction matters when interpreting the scope of rights described — chemerage could encompass privileges beyond mere inheritance, such as precedence in feudal obligations or ceremonial prerogatives.
Burrill's cross-reference to the related term chemier signals that chemerage belongs to a cluster of connected provincial French feudal vocabulary. Researchers tracing this term should follow that cross-reference; chemier likely refers to the eldest heir in that same provincial system, and understanding both terms together clarifies the full concept.
Because this is a term of old French provincial law, the primary research pathway runs through continental feudal law treatises rather than English case law reporters. Guyot's Institutions Féodales (cited by Burrill as Guyot, Inst. Feod. ch. 18, sect. 4) is the supporting authority identified in the historical dictionaries.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three source dictionaries are in agreement on the core definition: chemerage means the privilege or prerogative of the eldest in old French law. Black's (1st ed.) states this in compressed form. Both Black's (2nd ed.) and Burrill expand slightly by identifying it as a provincial term and tracing it to chemier, and by citing Guyot's Institutions Féodales as authority.
The truncated citation in Black's (2nd ed.) — "Guyot, Inst. —" — suggests the second edition may have drawn directly from Burrill without completing the reference independently, a not uncommon occurrence in 19th-century legal lexicography. Burrill's entry is the most substantive of the three and should be treated as the primary dictionary source for this term.
None of the three dictionaries explains the precise range of privileges chemerage encompassed beyond inheritance preference, and none situates it within a specific province of France. Researchers requiring geographic or doctrinal precision will need to go beyond the dictionary sources to Guyot or other feudal law treatises.
Jurisdictional Note
Chemerage is a term of old French provincial feudal law and has no recognized application in English common law or any American jurisdiction. It may appear in Louisiana legal history materials given that state's French civil law heritage, but even there the term is archaic and purely historical.