This is the 3904th most frequent French word.
appartenait
"Appartenait" means "belonged."
Here, 'appartenait' is used as the imperfect tense of 'appartenir', meaning 'belonged', indicating past possession.
Cette maison appartenait à ma grand-mère avant.
This house belonged to my grandmother before.
In this sentence, 'appartenait' is used to describe an attribute of the book in the past, conveying ownership or association with Jean.
Le livre qui appartenait à Jean est maintenant perdu.
The book that belonged to Jean is now lost.
This usage of 'appartenait' is to describe past ownership of the land by an ancient king, again in the imperfect tense to stress the historical aspect.