[jason taylor]

While the OP quite reasonably objected to, "every democracy is a western liberal democracy and every monarchy is medieval England" there are a number of obscurities in the Common Law that are exotic enough that one does not have to go abroad to find interest. One I found in one book was that it used to be a custom in some villages to cede land as designated parking space to passing Traveller clans, presumably those they have some sort of trade alliance with. The details of land use are also complicated. For instance there have been occasions where two villages shared a wood as pasturage. Likewise rent can have all sorts of weird connotations. In one place on the border it included the duty to sound a horn if the Scots are coming. In another place it included the obligation to marry the landlord's daughter(to provide for her naturally, though moderns would prefer the same effect done with rather less baggage to say the least).