Planning for Death. This item is unavailable.Planning for Death

The 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.

Mia Korpiola, LL.D. (2004), University of Helsinki, is Professor of Legal History at the University of Turku. She had authored and edited several books, including Regional Variations in Matrimonial Law and Custom in Europe, 1150-1600 (Brill, 2011).
Anu Lahtinen, Ph.D. (2007), University of Turku, is Professor of Finnish and Nordic History at the University of Helsinki. She has published on medieval and early modern history, including Dying Prepared in Medieval and Early Modern Northern Europe (Brill, 2017).