Moiety

Moiety title is legal term describing a portion other than a whole of ownership of property. The word derives from Old French moitié, "half" (the word has the same meaning in modern French), from Latin medietas ("middle"), from medius.

In English law, the term is used in parsing aspects of ownership and liability in all forms of property.

Moiety is a Middle English word for one of two equal parts under the feudal system. Thus on the death of a feudal baron with only two daughters as heiresses, a moiety of his fiefdom would generally pass to each daughter, to be held by her husband. This would involve the division of the barony, generally consisting of several manors, into two groups of manors, which division would presumably be effected by negotiation between the two parties concerned. Such was the case in the barony of Newmarch, the caput or chief manor of which was at North Cadbury, Somerset, when James de Newmarch died in 1216.[5] Such a division into moieties was unnecessary when a noble died with surviving male issue (including grandsons or great-grandsons via the male-only line), with instead the applicable default principle being that of primogeniture.