Attournen

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Formally shift loyalty or rental obligations from one feudal lord or landlord to another, as an archaic legal act
2. To pass a tenant's duty of homage or rent over to a new superior, a procedure once common in medieval land law
3. Transfer one's feudal allegiance or tenancy to a different overlord, binding oneself to the new lord in an old legal manner

Etymology: Before it was a legal term, this verb meant something close to "to turn toward" or "to direct," and it is not a common English word today. It comes from Old French "atorner," built from "a-" (to) and "torner," "to turn." Old French "torner" goes back to Latin "tornare," "to turn on a lathe," from "tornus," a lathe, which in turn comes from Greek "tornos," a tool for making circles. So the word's core image is turning something around a fixed point. In medieval English law, the verb took on a specific sense: a tenant who transferred their homage and service from one lord to another, or a lord who passed a tenant's allegiance to a new holder of the estate, was said to attourn. This is the sense in which the word survives in legal history, where it meant recognizing a new landlord. The English noun "attorney" is a close relative. It comes from Anglo-French "atorné," the past participle of the same Old French verb, meaning "one appointed or turned over to another's business." Both words descend from the same idea of turning a matter toward a particular person.