#medieval law

• Ahdname — An archaic graphic and phonetic form (attested in old Romanian chronicles) for ahdiname; an official diplomatic treaty, solemn charter, or imperial decree through which the sultans of the Ottoman Empire granted specific legal privileges, structural autonomy, protection, or commercial freedoms to vassal states (such as the Romanian Principalities) or Christian subjects. These documents established the legal framework for bilateral relations and represented a sacred imperial guarantee.
• Allodial — Belonging to an allodium, relating to an allodium; describing a form of full land ownership, free of any feudal obligations, taxes, or vassal services to a suzerain, being held directly and hereditary transmissible during the medieval era.
• Allodialism — A legal, economic, and social system based on the holding of lands as allodium, meaning full private properties exempt from feudal dues, rents, or vassal services to a suzerain lord. This land tenure regime, though a minority during the medieval period dominated by conditional fiefs, represented an early form of absolute and independent ownership of the soil.
• Collective petition — An old phonetic variant or chancellery form encountered in medieval charters for the word 'arzmahzar' or 'mahzar'; an official act, collective petition, written memorandum, or complaint jointly signed by an assembly of boyars, merchants, or land inhabitants, submitted to the ruling prince or the sultan to demand justice or the redress of administrative abuses. In a historical structural-legal sense, it represented an essential instrument of political pressure and judicial dialogue under the old regime.
• Ottoman petition — An official petition, grievance, or written request submitted in the past by the inhabitants or officials of the Romanian Principalities directly to the Ottoman Divan or to the Sultan. This formal document, drafted according to the strict rules of the Istanbul bureaucracy, was used to complain about rulers' abuses, request tax reductions, or settle major international legal disputes.
• Auxilium — A Latin term representing the original concept of help, assistance, or military alliance; in the Roman Empire, it denoted non-citizen auxiliary troops (auxilia), while in feudalism, it represented the obligation of military and financial assistance that a vassal owed to his lord (auxilium et consilium).