ALBINAGGIO (French aubaine, Middle English escheat). - The right of a. or of albinage (perhaps from the Latin alibi natus, born elsewhere) is, properly speaking, that right by which the feudal lord, or the king, or the State, according to the periods and places, collected the inheritance of the non-naturalized foreigner who died in territory subject to his jurisdiction. In a broader sense, the word a. also signifies the complex of legal incapacities to which foreigners were once subject, especially in the field of testamentary successions.
The historical development of a., which survived at least in part until the nineteenth century in some countries, varied from country to country. It is to the credit of the Church that it was the first to rise up against this barbarous institution, banishing it from its territories (v. also STRANIERO, condizione giuridica dello).