Reading wills (original) (raw)
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Creditur Vulgo Testamenta Hominum Speculum Est Morum: Why the Romans Made Wills
Classical Philology 84 (1989) 198-215
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The Will in Mortis Causa Legal Documents
Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Braşov, Series VII: Social Sciences and Law, 2014
The will of a person is a complex process that includes acts of intelligence, emotional acts and volition ones. The notion of liberal intent is a complex, uncertain, subjective and evolutional one. In trying to define the concept of "liberal intention" (for the legislature is reluctant to formulate such a definition) one must start from the premise that liberal intention is the essence of liberality and it is based on the ruler's desire to minimize his/her heritage unselfishly, to impoverish him/herself in favour of another. At first glance, the notion of liberal intent seems simple, but a more thorough examination raises a number of difficulties. In this sense, in defining the notion, two streams have emerged-one that emphasizes the objective conception on the intention to reward and another one that emphasizes the subjective concept.
Wills in the Roman empire: a documentary approach, JJP Supp. 23, Warsaw 2015
The present book deals with the testamentary practice as seen through papyri, tablets, doctrinal and literary sources, manuscript tradition, etc. mostly in the period after the constitutio Antoniniana. The aim of Wills in the Roman empire: a documentary approach is to reconstruct how people applied law and how testamentary practice looked like in everyday life: how wills were made and opened, what was the meaning of particular dispositions. These questions constitute a part of a wider discussion concerning the level of knowledge and application of Roman law in the provinces after the edict of Caracalla. The book is supplemented with four Appendices, where all wills from the Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine periods are collected for the first time in scholarly literature.
Archaeologia Cambrensis, 2001
The document published here is a typical Roman waxed writing-tablet (tabula cerata) intended for inscribing with a stilus, a needle-pointed metal pen. However, it is unique in being the first such tablet to be found in Wales, and in content it is unique in Roman Britain; in fact for parallels we must look to Egypt. It is the first 'page' of a formal Roman will, a testamentum per aes et libram. 1
Miscellanea Historico-Iuridica, 2022
This article deals with the problem of making a will during an epidemic and simplifications in the testamentary formalities that are necessary to facilitate a testator to validly express his or her wishes in such difficult and specific circumstances. It analyses testamentum tempore pectis conditum in Roman law and its modern equivalents in Spanish, Italian and Polish law. Preconditions of applicability of the special forms of a will in those systems and the simplifications introduced therein are compared. The article presents the specific provisions in which this form of a will is regulated and their interpretation in civil law doctrine and case law. The central questions are: under which circumstances this form of a will is allowed, what the purpose of the special regulations is, what the relaxation from the ordinary testamentary formalities consists in and what requirements should be fulfilled after the will is made to preserve its validity. Some basic comparisons with the ordinary forms of a will are made to establish the peculiarities of the will drawn up during the epidemic. The differences between the analysed provisions and their importance in practice are pointed out.
Why and How English Last Wills and Testaments Changed Since 1837
The theory of studying spirituality, writing, features of languages of different peoples and generalization of acquired knowledge, 2022
The research focuses on the multifaceted analysis of English Last Wills and Testaments as a social and communicative phenomenon. Wills are considered to be a constitutive genre of the testamentary discourse shaped in some definite situational and cultural contexts. Special attention is paid to changes which have occured in the layout and lexis of Last Wills and Testaments since 1837 when the Parliament of the United Kingdom confirmed the power of every adult to dispose of his/her property and though the Will which is 182 years old this year yet it serves as the foundation for all wills made since, in England and Wales.
2012
The analysis of Dalmatian urban last wills from the Late Middle Ages shows great similarity to the results previously reached by European scholars dealing with this subject in other regions. As in other parts of the Mediterranean, and to a certain extent also in continental Europe, the process of change in the expression and sensibility of religiosity started in the second half of the thirteenth century. These changes in some aspects of religious practice were related mainly to changes within the church (primarily the appearance of the mendicant orders) and urban society (economic development and population increase in the cities). Changes in religiosity may be clearly followed through such research into last wills, which precisely in the Late Middle Ages are submitted to a process of “democratization”. Thus, all members of urban communities were given an opportunity to compose their wills. As has been proved for other European cities from the same period, Dalmatian wills also show the influence of this process of “democratization” on the development of so-called “social Christianity.” Generally, it may be stated that the analysis of urban last wills of Dalmatian testators points to great similarities in the social, economic, and religious development of late medieval Dalmatian cities in comparison to the cities in other European (particularly Mediterranean) regions.
Heredis institutio caput et fundamentum totius testamenti est – as a rule of Roman inheritance law
Krytyka Prawa
In the Roman inheritance law, until post-classical law, the appointment of an heir on the basis of the rule heredis institutio caput et fundamentum totius testamenti est, was the foundation of the whole will. Heredis institutio was a crucial element of the content of the will and it should be placed in the very beginning as all dispositions placed before it, were void. And remained this way until Justinian law where the above mentioned formalism was annulled. First exceptions of the rule heredis institutio caput et fundamentum totius testament est and the order arising from testamentary dispositions placed therein, can be noticed in classical law, according to the constitution of custody, appointment to inherit by the own slave together with his liberation and disinheritance. Moreover, Roman law, based on the performance of praetors and Cesar law, exceptionally allowed the maintenance if the rest of the testamentary content (demises, trusts, liberations) when the heredis institutio fell or did not lead to inheritance. And so, the acceptance of the heir appointed in a will becomes a sole formality in classical law, and a range of deviations and exceptions appear in the discussed rule Heredis institutio caput et fundamentum totius testamenti est. The Western Roman post-classical practice and Justinian omitted the above mentioned rule totally.