Law: wills, probate, succession, inheritance Books

Book SynopsisThe volume Planning for Death: Wills and Death-Related Property Arrangements in Europe, 1200-1600 analyses death-related property transfers in several European regions (England, Poland, Italy, South Tirol, and Sweden). Laws and customary practice provided a legal framework for all post-mortem property devolution. However, personal preference and varied succession strategies meant that individuals could plan for death by various legal means. These individual legal acts could include matrimonial property arrangements (marriage contracts, morning gifts) and legal means of altering heirship by subtracting or adding heirs. Wills and testamentary practice are given special attention, while the volume also discusses the timing of the legal acts, suggesting that while some people made careful and timely arrangements, others only reacted to sudden events. Contributors are Christian Hagen, R.H. Helmholz, Mia Korpiola, Anu Lahtinen, Marko Lamberg, Margareth Lanzinger, Janine Maegraith, Federica Masè, Anthony Musson, Tuula Rantala, Elsa Trolle Önnerfors, and Jakub Wysmułek.Trade Review"This volume recommends itself with its careful consideration of the ways law and practice interacted, as well as its attention to how gender influenced how law could be deployed to carry out final wishes. It is also valuable in bringing the legal system and practice of early modern Scandinavia to the fore of legal studies, which have often focused more on studies of England and France, broadening our understanding of early modern legal histories". Janine Lanza, in Renaissance Quarterly, Renaissance Quarterly, 73 (1), pp. 269-270.Table of ContentsList of Illustrations and Figures List of Contributors 1 Introduction  Mia Korpiola and Anu Lahtinen Part 1: Range of Legal Options and Their Use 2 Inheritance Law, Wills, and Strategies of Heirship in Medieval Sweden  Mia Korpiola and Elsa Trolle Önnerfors 3 Monastic Donations by Widows: Morning Gifts as Assets in Planning for Old Age and Death in Fifteenth-Century Sweden  Tuula Rantala 4 Competing Interests in Death-Related Stipulations in South Tirol, c. 1350–1600  Christian Hagen, Margareth Lanzinger, and Janine Maegraith Part 2: Wills, Property Strategies, and Testamentary Practice 5 Medieval English Lawyers’ Wills and Property Strategies  Anthony Musson 6 Men and Women Preparing for Death in Renaissance Venice (c. 1200–1600)  Federica Masè 7 Mutual Testaments in Late Medieval Stockholm, c. 1420–1520  Marko Lamberg Part 3: Wills, Property, and Authority 8 Wills as Tools of Power: Development of Testamentary Practice in Krakow during the Late Middle Ages  Jakub Wysmułek 9 Deathbed Strife and the Law of Wills in Medieval and Early Modern England  R.H. Helmholz 10 The Will of Filippa Fleming (1578), Family Relations, and Swedish Inheritance Law  Anu Lahtinen Index of Persons General Index

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