Abstract
Twentieth-century legal historians have worked intensively on the birth of the notion of dominium utile, a legal category that was absolutely central during the Ancien Régime. Describing as dominium (property) the right exercised by the vassal over the thing received in fief, this legal notion achieves a doubling of ownership, identifying the granting lord as the holder of a dominium directum giving him only an eminent right over the property granted to his vassal. More detailed studies on this subject have attributed the creation of this legal device to the glossator Pillius de Medicina, who taught Roman and feudal law at the University of Modena from around 1180. An analysis of a document issued by the town's commune, hitherto neglected by legal historians, shows that this dogmatic creation fits into a historical moment marked by the economic and political exigencies of Modenese society, which attributed exceptional rights precisely to the concessionaires of church property held as fief or similar concessions.
