Circa 1100-1200 Inheritance rules?

Good Morning All,
Just an observation over the last several weeks on this Lancaster family,
as opposed to what I have observed in later time periods in great
Britain.
It seems that inheritance was a step-by-step or heirs general(all children
more or less got something) sort of thing as opposed to tailmail and heirs
male of the body that seemed so strictly observed from about 1400 on. Does
anyone know as to why or when this became more the rule than not ? even
speculation?

Chris Phillips...

Pollock and Maitland's work "The History of English Law Before the Time of
Edward I" (1898) is now available through the web-search Book Search database.

Volume 2 includes a very thorough treatment of the law of land tenure and
inheritance, and many other relevant subjects. It's available here:

Chris Phillips

This may be part of the reason this and several other families descents
are skewed as that is how I initially looked at this Lancaster line
applying rules of later centuries and Bam!! nothing jibes.
Modern feminists would have enjoyed that time period, it seems women
inherited and held lands much in their own right as their male
counterparts, and as in the old celtic tradition, the wife leaves the
husband, the dowry goes with her. I believe this is why I was and still to
some degee having difficulty wrapping my mind around these relationships
yet alone the same names, as I am, to a small degree, applying rules of a
different time period that didn't exist then. Just thoughts.
Best Regards,
Emmett L. Butler