wills and testamentary executors in medieval portugal to be assigned the task.10 The practice continued throughout the second half of the thirteenth century, sometimes coexisting with an executor – the testamenteiro, in Portuguese. The institution of heirs was especially important in the ecclesiastical world, since, as a rule, there were no mandated heirs such as a spouse or children, although it also was used among lay people without direct descendants. In such cases, the status of heir was often associated with that of executor, as exemplified by the will of the canon of Braga Estêvão Peres Ferro, dated 1250, which appoints two heirs also charged with fulfilling the last wishes of the deceased.11 From the last decades of the thirteenth century onwards it became rare for a will not to name one or more executors (see table2).There was also a growing complexity in their appointment, with the designation of possible substitutes in the event of one of them dying or no longer being able or willing to take on the task.12 It became common to appoint two different people, an heir and an executor, with the former also holding the responsibility to fulfil the testator’s final wishes. This was the case, for example, of the dean of Lamego Paio Rodrigues, who, in 1291, designated his nephew as heir and appointed another individual as executor, both having the obligation to oversee the payment of the dean’s debts and bequests.13 Paio Rodrigues also stipulated that whatever was left should be given for the benefit of his soul “if they saw that it was good”, permitting them to “increase and diminish”14 the amounts he established, and left the executor one mark of silver for fulfilling his duty. Besides illustrating the simultaneous appointment of an heir and an executor, this document also shows two other important aspects: the wide room for manoeuvre that executors could be given to carry out their 280 10 See, for instance, Morujão 2010, docs 1.10, 1.16, 1.19, 1.22, 1.24, 1.27, 1.36. 11 Morujão 2010, doc. 1.24. Other examples in Morujão 2010, docs 1.30, 2.54, 2.57, 7.6. 12 It is the case of Gomes Domingues, canon of Braga, from 1278 (Morujão 2010, doc. 1.35), of the bishop of Coimbra Pedro Martins, of 1301 (idem, doc. 2.41), or of the bishops of Porto Vicente Mendes and Sancho Peres, of 1296 and 1298, respectively (idem, docs 7.8, 7.9), among other examples. 13 Morujão 2010, doc. 5.6. 14 In the original: “que o dem por mha alma ali hu virem que seera bem. E mando e outorgo que eles possam ader e minguar en mha manda hu mester for”.
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