kirsi salonen ever, Bishop Conradus, the cathedral chapter as well as all the clerics in the town and diocese of Turku doubted whether they could continue this practice in good conscience. Thus, they petitioned the pontiff for a licence that would allow them to do so, despite the ecclesiastical constitutions and regulations. This petition provides interesting testimony about medieval inheritance practices in Sweden, because the petitioners argued that the Swedish clergy had followed slightly different customs in hereditary issues than what canon law stipulated, and that the priests had had greater freedom to bequeath their property than their peers elsewhere in Christendom.27 The text states clearly that, according to the old custom, Swedish priests have bequeathed both their personal property and property associated with their ecclesiastical office – and that the clergy in Turku wanted to continue following this custom, although they were aware of the fact that it was not what the ecclesiastical rules stipulated. The claim of the petitioners is, indeed, curious, as it does not correspond to the other known regulations from the Middle Ages, like the 1248 statute that allowed Finnish clergymen to bequeath their personal property but not ecclesiastical property. The petitioners must have based their claims on some reason, as otherwise they would be lying directly to the pope. Did the petitioners have anotherdocument stating other reasons?From where did their claim originate? That is impossible to answer based on the few surviving documents. In any case, their request was not a typical one. What makes this unusual document even more interesting – also for those interested in canon law – is the decision clause at the end of the text (fiat ut petitur de licencia testandi in forma pro episcopo et moderno capitulo). It shows that popes and the papal administration were not just a rubber stamp approving any request for which the petitioners asked – although this may have been the case in many standard petitions. If one reads the petition text and the decision superficially, it seems that the 27 Pirinen 1952, pp. 207–214. 175
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