kirsi salonen tirely to the Church (unless the relatives of the deceased appeared within a stipulated time period to demand the inheritance), but clerics with a Swedish background could distribute their personal property to benefit their relatives.11 In Sweden, an important year in the development of regulations related to testamentary practices was 1248. In that year the well-known papal cardinal legate, William of Sabina (or Modena) visited Sweden and in late February presided over a synod in the town of Skänninge.12 In this meeting the hereditary rights regarding the property of Swedish clerics were carefully defined. The decision made in Skänninge dutifully followed the regulations included in the newly (1234) compiled collection of ecclesiastical legislation, the Liber Extra.13 In the meeting, the cardinal addressed many different ecclesiastical issues, but one of the main issues was the enforcement of the celibacy regulations in the Swedish church province. The statutes of the synod of Skänninge stipulated, among other things, that priests must be celibate and were not allowed to have a wife or even live with a woman. Those who were already married or cohabiting had to divorce within one year’s time. As the Church struggled with the enforcement of celibacy regulations, the meeting made one exception to the rule: priests who were older than 50 years could keep their wives or concubines if they made a promise to their bishop to be celibate and not to sleep under the same roof with the woman. The meeting stipulated also that the sons of priest from then on would not have the right to inherit after their father, but that priests were nevertheless allowed to bequeath their personal property to anyone, including their sons. The Church could not declare the sons of priests already born illegitimate, but the meeting decided that all the offspring of priests born after a year from the meeting would be considered illegitimate.14 11 Pirinen 1952, pp. 202–214. 12 About the synod, see Ljungfors 1950. 13 Edited inCICII, coll. 5–928. 14 The document from the meeting in Skänninge has survived in an original diploma, nowadays kept in the collection of the Swedish National Archives (RA, Or. Perg 0101, 1.3.1248). See the edited text in SDHK 613 (https://sok.riksarkivet.se/sdhk?SDHK=613&postid=sd hk_613). 171
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