El testamento de Juan Moliner (†1403): un físico al servicio de la monarquía navarra durante la Baja Edad Media / The testament of Juan Moliner (†1403): a doctor at the service of the kings of navarre during the late Middle Ages

A través del testamento de Juan Moliner, médico de los reyes Carlos II y Carlos III de Navarra, el presente estudio pretende acercarse a su persona, familia, ámbito social y nivel socio económico en el que desarrolla su vida. Los datos que aporta dicho documento arrojan algo de luz sobre su ciclo vital, hasta el momento bastante desconocido, pese a ser uno de los más importantes médicos cristianos que atendieron a Carlos III ‘el Noble’. A todo esto hay que añadir la dimensión espiritual y religiosa de sus últimas voluntades, que vienen a completar la mentalidad y el modo de vida de este personaje(AU)

This work is an approach to the life and socioeconomic context of Juan Moliner (doctor of kings Carlos II and Carlos III of Navarre), based on the study of his testament. The document provides enlightening information about this figure, quite unknown despite being one of the most important Christian doctors at the service of Carlos III ‘El Noble’. In addition, his last will has a religious and spiritual dimension that allows to have an overall perspective on the mentality and lifestyle of this historical character(AU)

[The five wills of Francisco Xavier Balmis]. / Los cinco testamentos de Francisco Xavier Balmis.

The recent discovery of the testamentary records of Francisco Xavier de Balmis (1753-1819), director of the Royal Philanthropic Expedition of the Vaccine, constitutes a new source material with which to study his biographical profile.Balmis wrote a total of five wills covering the period from 1803-1818 and coinciding with crucial moments in his life.The analysis of these documents has led to interesting observations that confirm Balmis's personal insecurity before facing the Expedition, his vulnerability when he was stripped of his possessions for joining the royalist cause against Napoleon, the reassurance he felt when his honors and property were restored, or his fortitude in facing the final moments of his life. The documents also reveal that Balmis used his career as a military surgeon as a tool to achieve social prestige, and belie the assumptions of an obscure end. The inventory of his goods confirms his comfortable economic situation and his ability to manage it. The notarial sources are confirmed by this case of Balmis, an official of the Crown, as an appropriate source for the study of urban oligarchies of the Spanish Ancien Régime.

Investigating early modern Ottoman consumer culture in the light of Bursa probate inventories.

This study investigates the development of early modern Ottoman consumer culture. In particular, the democratization of consumption, which is a significant indicator of the development of western consumer cultures, is examined in relation to Ottoman society. Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century probate inventories of the town of Bursa combined with literary and official sources are used in order to identify democratization of consumption and the macro conditions shaping this development. Findings demonstrate that commercialization, international trade, urbanization which created a fluid social structure, and the ability of the state to negotiate with guilds were possible contextual specificities which encouraged the democratization of consumption in the Bursa context.

The effect of ethnicity and economy upon intergenerational coresidence: northern Norway during the last part of the nineteenth century.

During the last part of the nineteenth century, Finnmark province and the northern part of Troms experienced a decline in intergenerational coresidence. This article discusses what impact ethnic affiliation and economic activity had on the living arrangements of the elderly, and what contributed to the change. Logistic regression shows that ethnicity played a role but its effect disappears after controlling for economic activity. Intergenerational coresidence was positively associated with being a married Sámi male with an occupation in farming or combined fishing and farming. As such a person grew older, he was increasingly likely to live separately from an own adult child. This pattern changed toward the end of nineteenth century. By the close of the century, ethnic differences had disappeared, and headship position, irrespective of marital status, was strongly related to coresidence.

Enduring love? Attitudes to family and inheritance law in England and Wales.

This paper reports on the findings from a large-scale study of public attitudes to inheritance law, particularly the rules on intestacy. It argues that far from the assumption that the family' is in terminal decline, people in England and Wales still view their most important relationships, at least for the purposes of inheritance law, as centred on a narrow, nuclear family model. However, there is also widespread acceptance of re-partnering and cohabitation, producing generally high levels of support for including cohabitants in the intestacy rules and for ensuring that children from former relationships are protected. We argue that these views are underpinned by a continuing sense of responsibility to the members of one's nuclear family, arising from notions of sharing and commitment, dependency and support, and a sense of lineage.

Inheriting, marrying, and founding farms: women's place on the land.

This article considers rural women's place on the land in south-central New York during the first half of the twentieth century. Based on a community history and ethnographic study conducted during the 1980s, the article draws on women's oral narratives to explore the connections between women's sense of agency and their relationship to the land through descent and inheritance, marriage into a landowning family, founding a farm in partnership, and the experience of dispossession.

"Revolting to humanity": oversights, limitations, and complications of the English Legitimacy Act of 1926.

This article analyses three areas that limited the effectiveness of the English Legitimacy Act of 1926. First, re-registration was public, expensive, and time-consuming. Second, the Treasury Office used the change in the law of intestacy to refuse more distant relatives' claims on estates. Third, the law separated legitimacy from nationality, thus denying citizenship to legitimated children born abroad of British fathers and foreign mothers. In short, both because of parliamentary oversights and civil servants' narrow interpretations of the law, relatively few children took advantage of the Act, and the minority who did, rather than being 'illegitimate' or 'legitimate', were a third category, the 'legitimated'.

Women's property rights and gendered policies: implications for women's long-term welfare in rural Tanzania.

This paper evaluates effects of community-level women's property and inheritance rights on women's economic outcomes using a 13 year longitudinal panel from rural Tanzania. In the preferred model specification, inverse probability weighting is applied to a woman-level fixed effects model to control for individual-level time invariant heterogeneity and attrition. Results indicate that changes in women's property and inheritance rights are significantly associated with women's employment outside the home, self-employment and earnings. Results are not limited to sub-groups of marginalised women. Findings indicate lack of gender equity in sub-Saharan Africa may inhibit economic development for women and society as a whole.

Corresponding affections: emotional exchange among siblings in the Nassau family.

This article examines the nature of emotional exchange among the siblings who were the children of William the Silent, leader of the nascent Dutch Republic. Using evidence from extensive familial correspondence, it asks how the language of emotions could constitute forms of power within the family, by analyzing how actions and expressions of emotion were presented, discussed, and interpreted in epistolary form, to whom, and with what intention and impact. The article studies social, geographic, linguistic, and other distinctions between siblings in their use of affective discourses in correspondence and argues that attention to affective language can help to elucidate the agentive force of emotions in both reflecting and informing notions of power within the family.

Inheritance and intergenerational wealth transmission in eighteenth-century Ottoman Kastamonu: an empirical investigation.

This article investigates the relationship between inheritance and wealth in the context of eighteenth-century Ottoman Kastamonu. Based on the estate inventories of the deceased (sing. tereke) as recorded in Kastamonu court records (sicils), the article introduces a variety of quantitative techniques to measure the impact of Islamic inheritance practices on wealth accumulation across subsequent generations and to understand how it influenced wealth mobility among various socioeconomic groups. The estimations provided in this article suggest that while the inheritance practice in Kastamonu caused wealth fragmentation, the process also contributed to the durability of economic divisions within the provincial Ottoman society.

[Aspects of senile dementia in ancient Rome: literary fiction and factual reality]. / Aspekte der Altersdemenz im antiken Rom: Literarische Fiktion und faktische Lebenswirklichkeit.

Old people and their pecularities have been the object of writers since the beginning of Western literature. The aim of this study is to verify the social and juridical significance of senile dementia in ancient Rome. Among the few relevant sources the 10th satire of Juvenal attracts attention. It describes a demented patient who revises his succession in favour of a lady with bad reputation. Logically, we wonder whether such dispositions were possible and after all legally binding. Or did Juvenal exaggerate? A look at the Roman legislation shows: Since the Twelve Tablet Law there were instruments to control or to help demented people. This meant care in the sense of the today's curatorship or guardianship. These measures were supposed to prevent extravagancy or doing business and legal acts like marriages or last wills in the state of diminished responsibility. Nevertheless, it must be assumed that there was a considerable discrepancy between juridical theory and daily practice, because the position of the "pater familias" was virtually untouchable, the individual freedom of the full citizen was firmly underlined and the Roman civil law allowed only little executive interferences. Juvenal's bizarre example should not only be taken as good literary fiction. It might reflect the sad, but nevertheless probable reality of the people directly concerned. Apart from that it has to be said that senile dementia played only a minor role in Roman legislation. Mainly because there were considerably less very old people--and in particular people with senile dementia--than today.

[The relation to the soul and body in the 'good death' category in the light of Old Polish manuals, guides and wills]. / Stosunek do duszy i ciala w kategorii "dobrej smierci"--w swietle przewodników, poradników i testamentów staropolskich.

The phenomenon of death has accompanied human existence since the dawn of time. In the Middle Ages, it was something regarded as a natural, universal and almost daily occurrence. But it was not a concern for the body that absorbed the thinking of ordinary mortals. It was a belief in the afterlife and the immortality of the soul that made the phenomenon of death so essential. The after-death fate of human souls was to depend on that phenomenon, on the manner in which one's temporal life ended. But was only the welfare of the soul taken into account in the Old Polish period was well as more modern times? On the basis of old-time handbooks, guides and instructions manuals devoted to 'good dying', the author has presented various ways people once displayed a concern for the soul's further existence. Prayer, penance, alms and reconciliation with the temporal world were only some of them. A major role was assigned to the drafting of wills. It should be emphasised, that those not only concerned estates. The testaments drafted by Catholics contained requests for pre-paid prayers, masses and sums set aside for alms for the needy. A concern for one's earthly remains was by no means neglected. Both among Catholic and Protestant believers, the custom of holding often sumptuous funerals, referred to as pompa funebris, was a customary right, and requests for a 'quiet' funeral encountered in wills were not widely respected by heirs of the deceased.