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This chapter explores the issues of freedom of testation and the age of testator in relation to the law of succession, discussing the factors associated with the capacity to execute a last will, including mental incapacity, centralised organisation of wills, and infirm or aged testators. It compares the relevant provisions of the South African and Roman-Dutch law and highlights some aspects of the strange handling of freedom of testation in modern law.

This chapter examines the history of compulsory heirship in Roman law, providing an overview of the development of the idea of a right to obtain part of the estate even contrary to the will of the testator. It explains that this right is the historical root of the compulsory portion of modern law of succession and that the idea of succession, contrary to the last will, presupposes the recognition of testamentary succession itself. Thus, the validity of testamentary dispositions was dependent upon the fact that an heir had been instituted at the beginning of the testament.

In the late medieval and early modern periods, the last will and testament was not just a legal document; it was also a kind of literature. A range of poems and prose that engaged with the conventions of the legal last will became a feature of writing in English from the fourteenth century onwards. Sometimes fictional testaments exist as free-standing pieces of writing; often they are found embedded within larger literary texts. They focus on a range of imaginary testators, ranging from figures from myth and history, through notorious contemporaries, and animals, to the devil himself. Bequests were similarly various, including curses, farts, abstract qualities such as peace, and even the body of the testator. This chapter discusses fictional testaments by (amongst others) Geoffrey Chaucer, William Langland, Robert Henryson, George Gascoigne, and Isabella Whitney.

Chapter 6 tells the full story of Walker’s last will and testament, which has been used by scholars to document her generosity because of its numerous charitable provisions. To date, scholars have missed the discrepancy between Walker’s intended charitable provisions and those actually executed by her daughter, A’Lelia, as executor. Consequently, only one-tenth of Walker’s estate went to charity rather than her intended one-third, a reduction explained in part by Walker’s own exorbitant spending during her lifetime and that of her daughter afterwards. The chapter explains how Walker lived during a transitional period in which women’s wills were rare—but becoming more common—and African American wills were historically restricted. She used testamentary documents to navigate her social position with respect to race, class, and gender and asserted her identity as an honorable, respectable, God-fearing, and generous black female business owner under the absurdities and indignities of Jim Crow. It told succeeding generations how she wished to be remembered and signaled women’s and African Americans’ increasing use of testamentary tools to preserve their property rights. It also set the tone for how subsequent generations would remember and pay homage to Walker as a great race woman who inspired and uplifted African Americans.

The chapter focuses on three poems Celan write for his thirteen-year-old son, Eric, in 1968. These poems are read against the background of the May ’68 student uprisings in Paris, in which both father and son took part; in the context of the poet’s own increasingly unstable mental condition and the potential danger he came to pose to his wife, his son and himself; and in view of the poet’s suicide less than two years later. Of particular relevance to the poems written at this time was the delusion from which Celan suffered that poetry was demanding of him that he re-perform “the sacrifice of Abraham,” that, in short, he was being made to choose between poetry and his son. The chapter examines the various ways Celan sought to negotiate this “terrible alternative” as he wrote poems to and about his son, about the relationship between poetry and paternity, but also and perhaps above all about translation and a time to come.

This chapter uses Nahua and Maya last will and testaments to expose the similarities and differences in how natives experienced Catholicism upon dying. It examines the preambles of testaments and their religious content to better understand the roles of both the notary and testator in determining the posthumous care of the soul. Furthermore, the chapter demonstrates how Nahua testators had greater access to Catholic rituals and traditions upon dying than the Maya.

This chapter shifts attention from the literariness of Thomas Nashe’s style to its performability. It recalls the role performance played in his education, and his links to the theatre. It considers what was so meaningful about live performance that he tried to recreate its effect in printed prose. It explores the theatricality of his prose: his use of the rhetorical sentence to represent live thinking; his use of direct address in Summers last will and testament and The Unfortunate Traveller; and his imitation of the university play Pedantius in Have with you to Saffron Walden. Nashe’s attempt to bring the flat page to life with thought, wit, and emotion explains his criticism of Gabriel Harvey, whose pamphlets he represents as material objects that can be reduced to their constituent parts with no loss.

This chapter focuses on the women of Deir al-Medina and the crimes they committed. It starts with the women from Naunakhte's family, who are not mentioned in connection with any court case except the division of her will. In particular, it cites the adultery between Naunakhte's daughter Menatnakhte and the workman Weserhat, and possibly other scandals in the family. It shows that there are few court cases involving women in Deir al-Medina, in part because women were not always allowed to file suit in court about trifles. It also asks why Naunakhte settled her last will in public and concludes with the argument that women appearing in court did not necessarily mean that they were criminals.

This chapter focuses on Naunakhte's son, Neferhotep. Bernard Bruyère found two fragments of a limestone seat in the village containing the names of both Neferhotep and his brother Maaninakhtef. This could mean two things: the two men shared a house or this could actually be their carpenter's shop. Apart from being a workman, a colophon made by Neferhotep's brother Amunnakhte in one of the Chester Beatty papyri also refers to him as a carpenter. In Naunakhte's last will Neferhotep was excluded from the main part of the inheritance because he always asked her for support. Naunakhte's decision suggests that Neferhotep was a wimp who was unable to make ends meet, and instead of supporting his mother in her old age she had to support him. Nevertheless, Neferhotep contested her will after she died. The chapter also considers two court cases involving Neferhotep and laid before the divine oracle.

This chapter focuses on the inheritance left by Richard Edwards as part of his last will and testament. Richard Edwards did not have a hard time rebuilding his life following his divorce from Elizabeth Tuttle. He remarried less than six months after the divorce was granted, and in less than a year his new wife delivered their first child. His legal career also flourished. During the latter years of his life, Richard had acquired a considerable estate worth more than 1,100 pounds at probate. Two days after falling ill, he dictated his last will and testament. His heirs included his two sons, Timothy and John. Three days after the will was signed and witnessed, however, Richard added a curious codicil to the document. He bequeathed two shillings to Mary, the daughter of Elizabeth, apparently to protect his estate by preventing her from making a more substantive claim.

Could women and non-elite writers participate in the poetics of custom? This chapter responds with a resounding “yes” by showing how Isabella Whitney’s 1573 A Sweet Nosgay immersed itself in the conceptual and philosophical world of common law. In particular, Whitney’s poetry draws upon and responds to the increased dissemination and popularization of knowledge about common law’s status as custom, while also posing challenges to that process. While nowhere in her volume does she mention the term custom, it is powerfully present in both the volume’s structure and in its poetics of the commonplaces and common places of Renaissance London in her mock last will and testament. Perhaps appropriately, it is a lower-class writer who is able to realize poetically the democratizing possibilities of custom’s literary properties.