Definition
A Latin term from medieval feudal law with two related but distinct applications: (1) the mustering or assembling of men, particularly for military or feudal service; and (2) the performance of homage — the formal act by which a tenant acknowledged a lord's superiority and pledged fealty in exchange for the holding of land. Both senses reflect the same underlying feudal structure in which personal bonds between lord and tenant were expressed through formal ceremony and obligatory service.
Why It Matters in Research
Hominatio appears almost exclusively in medieval Latin documents — Domesday Book, feudal charters, and manorial records — and is effectively a dead term in modern legal usage. Researchers encountering it in primary sources should determine from context which of the two senses applies: the mustering sense tends to appear in military or administrative records, while the homage sense appears in conveyancing and tenure documents.
The term is closely connected to the broader vocabulary of feudal tenure. Because hominatio and homagium (homage) share a common root and overlapping meaning, the two are sometimes used interchangeably in source texts. Researchers consulting Domesday Book materials or Spelman's Glossarium Archaiologicum will find hominatio used in the homage sense; Blount's Nomo-Lexicon similarly treats it in that frame. Neither term survives into common law pleading or modern statutory language, making hominatio relevant only to historical and comparative legal research.
Researchers working on feudal tenure, Norman land law, or the history of military service obligation should index hominatio alongside homagium, fealty, and liege homage. The term does not appear in equity or ecclesiastical records with any frequency and should not be expected outside the feudal law corpus.
Historical Dictionary Support
The four source dictionaries are in close agreement. Black's (both editions) and Rapalje & Lawrence give identical two-part definitions: "the mustering of men; the doing of homage." Burrill adds useful sourcing — attributing the homage sense to Spelman, Domesday, and Blount — and anchors the term explicitly in its Latin root (homo), though that root carries the feudal meaning of "man" in the sense of a vassal or liege-man, not merely a human being.
No source dictionary provides nuanced analysis of when the mustering sense versus the homage sense applies, or how usage varies across document types. Researchers should treat the dictionaries as starting points and consult Spelman's Glossarium directly for the richer etymological and contextual treatment. Blount's Nomo-Lexicon and the Domesday entries cited by Burrill remain the primary primary-source anchors for this term.