XPost /r/medievalhistory Droit du Seigner. I just sent out a podcast giving the standard interpretation, saying that it basically didn't happen and wasn't really a law. Do any of you have any more updated information and interpretations that would change the way I presented it? t's also makes me wonder what other "rights" of lords have been invented or exaggerated and are more or less modern urban legends. In other words, how complex and negotiated were lord-vassal relations, generally speaking? I need to do some reading on this, and would like to provide my listeners with reading suggestions if you folks don't mind letting me know. Thanks, PB
The definitive book on the subject remains Alain Boureau's The Lord's First Night: The Myth of the Droit de Cuissage.
If you're interested in feudalism, I would suggest you read Elizabeth Brown's The Tyranny of a Construct in the American Historical Review 79:4, Kathleen Davis' Periodization and Sovereignty, and Thomas Bisson's The Feudal Revolution in Past & Present 142 and the four follow-up articles.
Although I applaud the basic idea of your project, I question the utility of asking for sources post facto.