Court of Affinity

In Outer Joriscia, a Court of Affinity is tasked with the regulation of inheritance and the resolution of disputes regarding wills and similar questions, as well as having broader powers connected to the determination of lineage. Such courts range from large permanent civic bodies with specialised staff, common in modern cities, to temporary proceedings overseen by a Vocation Scholar or his representative in a small rural School. Due to the complexity of establishing the primary and secondary heirs under Vaestic inheritance practice, Courts of Affinity are often busy places. Although their operations can be traced back to the earliest Vesnites and even to the pre-Vesnite Argotes, the first specialised Courts of Affinity appeared in Neritsovid cities in the 16th century.

Although less important today, the second function of Courts of Affinity - that is, establishing lineage - was historically key to determining individuals' rights to enjoy the privileges of the High Nobility or the use of specific surnames, etc. As such, they have been a prominent instrument in the partial or full disenfranchisement of individual families and in some particularly ignominious social projects entire demographic groups. The most infamous examples of this are the suppression of the Pseudolacreans and the Sublimation of Anabbah. In the latter case, both the expansive Court of Affinity in Great Pestul and the nine provincial courts set up in Anabbah itself provided judicial sanction to often entirely incredible claims to 'ancestral' agricultural lands in the Anabbine interior.