testaments in premyslid bohemia the13th century,54 when urban communities were constituted in economically active localities and acquired town rights, or new towns were founded and granted the appropriate rights. Towns in Bohemia and Moravia were not protected by the same rights,55 which is also reflected in inheritance laws and the ability of their residents to make wills. From the very beginning – in Brno since 1243 – the municipal laws of the South German legal district, represented in Czech lands by the Brno law, have contained provisions about the disposal of the burgesses’ estates, including the right to freely bequeath property.56 Under Magdeburg Law, which governed the northern part of Bohemia and Moravia, such possibilities were limited.57 However, even within one district, each town constituted a special legal district, and specific provisions and customs could differ. After 1372, some towns, irrespective of the legal district, were given the rights of the Old Town of Prague;58 but the standardisation of town rights, including testamentary rights, did not occur until the publication of the “Municipal Rights of the Czech Kingdom” by Pavel Kristian of Koldín in 1579.59 Although from the 13th century the burghers dealt with their property and necessarily made provisions for death, burgher testaments have been preserved in greater numbers only since the late Middle Ages, in Prague for example occasionally from 1360, more continuously from 1475;60 in Kutná Hora sporadically from 1428, continuously from 1462;61 inBrno since the forties of the 15th century.62 For thePřemyslid period, only very scarce source fragments can be identified. One of the few surviving reports informs of the bequest of a burgher of Most (Northwest Bohemia) in favour of the nearby monastery of St. Mary in Osek: a deed dated 31 October 1281, in which iudex and consules et scabini of the city of Most 314 54 Cf. Žemlička 1978; Hoffmann 1992. 55 Cf. Hoffmann 1975. 56 Cf. Jordánková – Sulitková 2006, pp. 39–41. 57 Cf. Hrubá 2002. 58 Čelakovský 1895, no. 454–513, pp. 648–672. 59 Malý 2013. 60 Fejtová – Jíšová 2006, p. 20. 61 Cf. Bisingerová – Vaněk 2006, p. 212–213. 62 Cf. Borovský 2006, pp. 56–57.
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