edieval willsfrom German towns have long been a topic of research, but few studies have been made on the diplomatics of municipal wills. A comparison of the holdings of three large imperial city archives in the German southwest, Ulm, Esslingen, and Reutlingen, with very unevenly distributed transmission of wills, reveals a vibrant world. Very different rights applied in the imperial cities, since the legal framework for wills was also quite individual. The forms of late medieval wills were determined by local as well as individual circumstances. Typical Central European document forms were used in each town: a sealed deed, notarial instruments, achirograph, and hybrid forms, on parchment or paper. For dispositions of property outside the city of Ulm other forms were possible. The form of the notarization was adapted to the legal requirements of each legal transaction. In addition to wills secured by documentary forms, there were unofficial handwritten wills. Copies of the wills in various forms for unspecified purposes, and certified copies in the form of avidimus provided with a credible seal, have been preserved. The archives of Ulm families also have drafts of wills with numerous deletions and additions. Different hands were involved, inserting formulary passages, clarifying individual provisions and adding details, and noting the corroboratio and the date. The drafts were placed in the town registry for the creation of deeds by scribes there. The wills were part of a larger context of documents with different functions, which we can observe as written documents accompanying the wills. It was certainly not yet time for a uniform administrative act, but depending on the situation and purpose, the medieval document system was flexible. It could be put to the test, particularly when complex problems among different legal systems were to be settled. mark mersiowsky 19 M Abstract
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