A Sealed Compact Well Ratified by Law and Heraldry

The most confusing part of Horatio's exposition relates to the compact that governs the combat between the elder Hamlet and the elder Fortinbras. The very fact that such a compact had to be drawn up signals something unusual is transpiring. Such a combat between individuals was considered to be symbolic warfare, and as such was governed by the normal rules for military engagement. Under normal circumstances, lands lost in battle were lost in perpetuity, and that was all there was to it. In Shakespeare's time, however, there was more than one form of ownership of land which led, at times, to legal complications governing the transfer of the those lands.

The need for the contract Horatio mentions is an indication that we are apparently dealing with such a situation here. Lee Anne Rappold points out that Horatio, in his narrative, is evidently talking about a document that contains reference to the legal machinations related to the holding and transfer of lands which were common under Elizabethan Common Law.

The combat passage is a singular piece of Shakespeare writing both within the limited context of his legal usage and the overall context of the Shakespeare canon. Most of the substantive words in roughly two-thirds of the fifteen-line passage have legal significance: "sealed compact", "ratified", "lawe and heraldry", "forfait", "seaz'd of", "moitie competent", "gaged", "returne", "inheritance", "comart", "carriage of the article designed". This appears to be Horatio's attempt at a memorial reconstruction of the actual language of the "sealed compact", a document that establishes the legality of the combat and the fundamentals of the land forfeiture which the combat determines.  - Lee Anne Rappold, Hamlet and the Elizabethan Common Law, dissertation. Univ. Calif. Santa Cruz, 1992. p.35.


A major focus of Elizabethan common law concerns the issue of the ownership of land and the transfer of deeds. Since land was the principle source of wealth, its value can also be thought of as a function of the income that it produces annually. Land could be owned outright (in fee simple) or as a life estate, or held for a specified length of time. If it was owned in fee simple, the death of the owner would result in it being inherited by the owner's heirs. If it was conveyed from one owner to another owner as a life estate, the ownership would revert to the original owner (or his or her heirs) upon the death of the second owner. Judging from the legal terminology used by Horatio, Ms. Rappold concludes that the lands lost as a result of the combat between Fortinbras and Hamlet was transferred to the winner in life estate, and therefore should have been returned to young Fortinbras (Norway) at the time of the senior Hamlet's death.

"Lands which he stood seized of": The term "seized" would have been understood by an Elizabethan audience to indicate that the land waged by elder King Fortinbras was held by him in fee simple. That is to say that it would normally have passed down to his heir (young Fortinbras) upon his death.

"Which had returned to the inheritance of Fortinbras": Most interpreters understand the "which" in this phrase to refer to the "moiety competent" which would have gone to Fortinbras had he won the combat. Lee Anne Rappold makes a strong argument, however, for understanding the "which" in this phrase as referring to the land of Fortinbras' wager. She argues that word "return" should be understood in its traditional sense of coming back to a former place or person, and points out that throughout the sixteenth century and much of the seventeenth, it was used as a legal term to indicate that following a life estate, property would "return" to an original owner. In other words, the lands won by the former King Hamlet were held as a life estate, and according to the agreement, should be returned to the elder Fortinbras' heir upon the elder Hamlet's death -- which was two months before the start of the play.

An Elizabethan audience, familiar with these legal terms and the regulations regarding the holding of land, would have seen the justice of Fortinbras' claim in Hamlet. This, in turn, would have diminished their image of Claudius - a king who would not live up to the agreements of his predecessor, boasting that Denmark had the military might to defeat anyone who tried to reclaim the land, and buying off the Norwegian king rather than submitting to law.