Apologies for any egregious errors or formatting errors, this was written on an iPad and the Notes app started chugging quite badly after a while.

By what manner might a woman hold land in a society dominated by a warrior-aristocracy? Women are seen in popular imagination (and, to be fair some older, historiographical traditions) as robbed of agency, pawns of their fathers and sold to the highest bidder or to forge the most opportune alliance. Spliced from her familial tree to another in oder to produce the next generation of warrior-aristocrats who will, in turn, repeat the cycle. The twelfth-century, which sees the tradition of courtly literature bloom in one of our principle regions of study (Champagne) under the famous pen of Chretien de Troyes, women would be objects of desire (whether or not that was channelled into a pure unrequited love). A few women would be raised above this relegation to gilded cages but always the widest image is of an oppressed and static group, with little real influence, trapped in loveless pragmatic marriages, and utterly subject to their male counterparts only able to find expression of agency in duplicitous, condemnable, and immoral means.

This popular image is broken by a few rays of light and they are lionised and condemned for their efforts in a world dominated by men. These include, but are not wholly restricted to, the Empress Mathilda (publicly perceived as an early and failed experiment in female English queenship), Eleanor of Aquitaine (most widely remembered for fostering both a thriving chivalric court and rebellion among her sons against their father, and demonised - near contemporaneously - for a supposed incestuous and adulterous relationship with her uncle, Raymond of Antioch), and, in a chronologically conflatory manner, women such as Joan of Arc (who would be burned at the stake for her impertinent challenge to the patriarchal and spiritual order).

As you might guess this slightly polemical description of the public image is not something I entirely agree with. While I will be outlining some of the principle manners in which women could exert their lordship this will not be a whitewash but the scales are notably tipped more in favour of marginalising women rather than in celebrating their influence. The short answer to your question is that, yes, women could exert a number of legal rights over land that they might acquire whether through inheritance (typically a pre-mortem share of inheritance, but one which could be provided by the family after the death of parents), that which they inherited directly, or the dower (see below) which was acquired in widowhood. This was, however, not the full extent to which a woman might exert power or influence over lands to which they were associated, they might also exert control as regents (whether due to widowhood or absence of their husband), or jointly within the marriage in a judicial, as witnesses, or through a 'public-political role' in the administration of a territory, finally, there exist an, admittedly small, number of women who would exercise influence over hereditary lands despite having a husband. The overarching thesis of this answer is that women in the eleventh- through thirteenth-centuries (we will extend slightly beyond your period!) were not powerless in marriage or utterly subject to their patriarchal or affinial male kin afterwards, but also acknowledge, through a series of case-studies, that female power was subject to extenuating circumstances. I shall explore whether the division of familial territory is, as popularly imagined, agnatic (ie. passed down through the male line), the nature of the dowry and its impact on other inheritance, and the role of women within the household and beyond in the county or regnal court (such as judicial influence or wielding political power), and their role in the most famous feature of aristocratic lordship - war. One feature of feminine power will not be discussed, nominally because it lies outside of the exact boundaries of the question, but principally because I'm not sufficiently knowledgable to pull together an answer: the role of women in monastic houses as abbesses and anchorites. We will finally, consider how representative our chosen examples in a wider prospographical setting.

The secondary material is unevenly spread, primarily due to the focus of a group of scholars on the County of Champagne and the family which ruled it means the wealth of synthesised material is immense. These scholars are centred upon the pioneering research of Theodore Evergates which was built upon by Kimberley LoPrete and Amy Livingstone. Where possible I have incorporated wider studies, such as those of Frederic L. Cheyette, whose fantastic study of Ermengarde of Narbonne is a must read for anyone interested in the topic of female tenurial and judicial lordship. I have also delved across the 'Angevin' border to Susan M. John's excellent study of Anglo-Norman female nobility. We shall also make extensive use of one of our lionesses mentioned above, Eleanor of Aquitaine as no such discussion could pass over her! The women from these various examples often existed in very diverse socio-political contexts (compounded by the advancement of time and increasing tendency toward a written legal culture). While a more considered study would impose significant limitations comparing where possible like-for-like in all instances, that would result in a thesis longer than I am willing to attempt here. Some unifying themes should, I hope, be uncovered in the process of comparison, however.

A final proviso before continuing is on the nature of law in the High Middle Ages. While legal promulgations might exist, these are not necessarily indicative of their veracity. Much medieval law, especially that of the twelfth-century Italian lawyers who composed books like the Libri Feudorum were categorising and rationalising customary law. Much of this effort was essentially idealistic. These lawyers sought to make some sense and streamline the irregularity of medieval custom but often based this on a very well recorded material - charters granted for military-based tenurial properties. These were but one property type in the Middle Ages, but one which has become dominant in the modern popular image of the period. While we can use legal sources we should always be aware that they are not always indicative of a cast-iron rule. Moreover, there were always those willing to breach laws when it was to their benefit, and doubly so when they were assured enough that no one would be able to enforce the custumal laws.