Wildy Logo
(020) 7242 5778
enquiries@wildy.com

Book of the Month

Cover of Company Directors: Duties, Liabilities and Remedies

Company Directors: Duties, Liabilities and Remedies

Edited by: Mark Arnold KC, Simon Mortimore KC
Price: £275.00

Lord Denning: Life, Law and Legacy



  


Welcome to Wildys

Watch


NEW EDITION Pre-order Mortgage Receivership: Law and Practice



 Stephanie Tozer, Cecily Crampin, Tricia Hemans
Practical guidance to relevant law & procedure


Offers for Newly Called Barristers & Students

Special Discounts for Newly Called & Students

Read More ...


Secondhand & Out of Print

Browse Secondhand Online

Read More...


Easter Closing

We will be closed between Friday 29th March and Monday 1st April for the Easter Bank Holidays, reopening at 8.30am on Tuesday 2nd April. Any orders received during this period will be processed with when we re-open.

Hide this message

Devising, Dying and Dispute: Probate Litigation in Early Modern England


ISBN13: 9781409434276
Published: July 2012
Publisher: Routledge
Country of Publication: UK
Format: Hardback
Price: £125.00



Despatched in 5 to 7 days.

Also available as
£95.00
+ £19.00 VAT

Seventeenth-century England was a country obsessed with property rights. For only those who owned property were considered to have a vested interest in the maintenance of law, order and social harmony. As such, establishing the ownership of 'things' was a constant concern for all people, and nowhere is this more evident than in the cases of disputed wills. Based on a wealth of surviving evidence from the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, the probate jurisdiction which probated wills of the more wealthy English property owners as well as some of those with a more modest quantity of property, this book investigates what litigation over the validity of wills reveals about the interplay between society and law. However, this is not just a book about law and legal practice. The records from which it draws plunge us into deeply personal and often tragic situations, revealing how the last requests of the dead and dying were often ignored or misinterpreted by family, friends and creditors for their own benefit. By focusing on property law as reflected in cases of disputed wills, the book provides a glimpse at a much fuller spectrum of society than is often the case. Even people of relatively modest means were concerned to pass on their possessions, and their cases provide a snapshot of the type of objects owned and social relationships revealed by patterns of bequests. This too is true for women, who despite being denied full participation in many areas of civic life, are frequently encountered as key players in court cases over disputed wills. What emerges from this study is a picture of a society for which notions of law and private property were increasingly intertwined, yet in which courts were less concerned with formality than with ensuring that the intentions of will-makers were properly carried out.

Subjects:
Legal History
Contents:
Preface
Introduction: dying, devising and dispute in early modern England
Part I The Forum and Its Litigation: Probate jurisdiction in early modern England: England's 'peculiar institution' in crisis
Disputes: the subject matter of testamentary litigation.
Part II The Legal Issues: Mental Element in Will-Making and the Authenticity of Legal Acts: 'Of sound and disposing mind and memory': testamentary capacity and undue influence
Estate plans by 'word of mouth': the validity of nuncupative wills
The sanctity of the written word: testamentary causes challenging the authenticity and due execution of written wills
Which will shall it be? Multiple testamentary documents and the revocation of testamentary acts.
Part III Windows into Social Relationships: Contested successions and contested marriages: evidence from the records of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury
Discord and inheritance: windows into family relations from testamentary litigation
The myriad roles of women in will-making and testamentary litigation in late 17th century England
Conclusion
Appendix
Bibliography
Index.