Birth certificates, passports, driving licenses, social security cards, and on and on. There is a seemingly endless stream of legal documents that one is obligated to create through their lifetime to prove their personhood, citizenship, and privileges.
One document that holds special legal import not just while you’re alive, but even after, is your will and testament. As you’re likely aware, it determines exactly how your assets will be apportioned to your near and dear ones once you’ve passed.
But a will and testament represents a lot more than that. It is indicative of how different societies perceive private property and a person’s legal rights after their passing. The rules that govern how a will is written and executed also tacitly reveals how societies assign inheritance rights to different family members based on factors such as their relationship to the deceased, gender, marital status, and so on.
What Is a Will and Testament
Before we dive into the history of this legal artifact, let’s take a moment to understand exactly what function it performs.
A will is a document that states how you want your assets to be distributed in the event of your passing. That includes both family members and any other persons to whom you may want to leave assets. In the absence of a will, family members usually have to turn to other legal means to determine exactly what they stand to inherit.
A will can take a few different forms depending on the country or state that you live in. The most common one is the written will, where you sign a written will in the presence of a few witnesses. If you don’t have anyone around to witness the singing, the document becomes what’s known as a holographic will, which is recognized by most states in the U.S. Oral wills stated in the presence of witnesses are legal in a small number of states under very specific circumstances.
Wills and Testaments Over The Ages
The idea of inheritance and creating wills predates modern legal structures by a couple of thousand years. There are a few key stages that the notion has undergone in its evolution during that time.
Wills in Ancient Greece and Rome
Writings by Aristotle show that thinkers in ancient Greece pondered rules not just for inherited property, but also the ability of members of the polis to acquire land. The philosopher writes that there were Greek cities that placed limits on the sale of allotted houses and estates. This ensured that land was distributed equitably among citizens.
When it came to passing property on, however, the rules weren’t quite as equitable. Only men were allowed to have wills in Athens. In the event that they had a son, property automatically passed on to the male heir. Men without male heirs could write property off only to the men their daughters married.
Ancient Rome largely followed in the footsteps of the Greeks. The first wills in ancient Rome were oral wills that were stated for public record. But they eventually moved on to written wills. Roman law was such that property automatically passed to close relatives unless they explicitly waived their rights to an inheritance.
Wills in The Anglo-Saxon Era
The Anglo-Saxon era dates between the sixth and eleventh centuries AD. Wills were largely oral in nature during this period. Individuals didn’t have much control over how wills were structured during this time as inheritance laws followed customary rules. Such customary rules, known as ‘forced heirship’ laws, are prevalent in some modern day countries.
There are some pieces of writing that have survived from this period that show us some interesting quirks about how wills were written. One document written by a ninth-century male named Ethelric asks that the Bishop Elfstan protect his widow and help ensure that the terms of his will were honored. This and other wills from this time show that the Anglo-Saxon church might have taken particular interest in how inheritances were executed.
The 1540 Statute of Wills
One of the more important moments in the history of wills is the Wills Act of 1540 passed by the English parliament. Before this act was passed, individuals could bequeath land only to living relatives based on the rules of primogeniture. In the absence of such relatives, the land automatically passed to the Crown.
Henry VIII transformed these strictures by giving individuals greater autonomy over their estate. The Statute of Wills made it possible for individuals to elect people to bequeath property to even if they weren’t direct descendants.
Conclusion
We’ve seen how the idea of a will goes back to ancient times and has evolved significantly since then. These rules have laid the foundation for modern-day laws regarding estates and inheritances. In Part 2 of this series, we will turn our attention to some famous wills and some fun facts regarding these documents.
