Testament
object · 2 works · 2 mentions · 3 anchored passages
also in the atlas: Testament the idea
Will · Wills · testament · testamentum · will
in the texts
Institutes of Roman Law
The testator's will, whose validity depends on the valid institution of an heir under strict law.
alioquin inutile est testamentum in quo nemo recto iure heres instituitur.
The rules requiring that bequests should follow the institution of the heir, and should be limited to take effect in the lifetime of the heir, and prohibiting penal bequests, were abolished by Justinian, as may be seen by comparing the corresponding passages in his Institutes.
Ancient Law
The legal instrument of testamentary disposition, whose ancient Roman and later feudal/modern functions are contrasted.
Testaments were the principal instruments employed in producing inequality, and in this condition of things originated the shade of difference which shows itself between the ancient and modern conception of a Will.
Although there is much in the modern European Law of Wills which is intimately connected with the oldest rules of Testamentary disposition practised among men, there are nevertheless some important differences between ancient and modern ideas on the subject of Wills and Successions.
and we are also presented with a new remedy, very anomalous in character and of uncertain origin, called the Querela Inofficiosi Testamenti, “the Plaint of an Unduteous Will,” directed to the reinstatement of the issue in inheritances from which they had been unjustifiably excluded by a father’s Testament.