cristina mantegna 183 hedialectical relationship betweentestamentumanddonatio mortis causa is clearly shown from the fourth century, when the imperial constitutions clarified, in the light of established practice, that the testamentumwas not the only form through which the will of a testator might be expressed. There existed, in fact, agreements and alternative written documents which might be used for such an end, and themortis causadonation was one of these. Inevitably, with the arrival of the Middle Ages and as Italy became Romano-Germanic, between the eighth and eleventh centuries, the Roman testament disappeared, although its name (i.e. testamentum) survived, while testamentary dispositions were made primarily through donations with a retained usufruct or donations effected only post mortem. The notaries of the period, however, were evidently aware of the particular nature of these juridical acts which allowed the owners of more or less significant patrimonies to bequeath, after their deaths, their own goods to churches and monasteries. This practice favoured the creation of a new style for transactions and documents characterised by the ordinatio and by the many cartule iudicati and cartule ordinationis which presented, in part, the structure of the donation but presented their essence in typical verbs of disposition: volo et statuo, volo et iudico, and similar variants. Such a simple and efficacious model was the object of a characteristic reinterpretation, witnessed into the twelfth century in Lombardy and parts of Emilia, which was designed to document acts of generosity involving an initial purchase of goods which were then granted to an ecclesiastical foundation, while allowing an interim grant of the usufruct to the seller of the same goods. TheRomantestamentumbegan to re-emerge in its original form only from the end of the eleventh century, at the same time as the first examples of the juridical Renaissance. T Abstract
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