16 Liedgren 1974, p. 224. 17 Waśko 1996, p. 13. Her dataset includes 179 testaments from 1280–1420. – The Swedish historian Birgitta Fritz compiled information from the period of large testaments about testaments mentioning objects, but only published a short article based on this dataset, on bequests of book (Fritz 1993). I have used this resource, which is now preserved at the Swedish National Archives (Medieval Source Editions). 18 Beattie 2019, pp. 34–35, 46–48 and Wood 2023, pp. 15–16 for England; Howell 1996, p. 26 for Douai in northern France. Gender issues have been a central vein of research about medieval testaments; see Teague 2013, pp. 4–7. 19 See for instance Axelsson 1993, p. 21, comparing the middle of the 14th century with the early15th century, where he shows that testaments with many objects were rare in the latter period. janken myrdal mentioned were to be notified on parchment and publically. Vertical (from the higher classes and downwards) relations to servants and others of lower social status entail that inexpensive objects are mentioned. The existence of these informative testaments has long been known. First to label themstora testamenten(large testaments) was Jan Liedgren in1974.16 AnnaWaśko, in her study of testaments by the nobility, defined them as testaments with many bequests.17 In my survey, my central concern can be described as testaments with many objects distributed to specific persons or institutions. I have excluded bequests of landed property and money. As regards the testators, two groups dominate. One of them is the higher nobility, both women and men; in the other we find clerics, many of them wealthy priests in the countryside. Other European studies of personal property in testaments have shown that women, on the average, tended to give more items than men.18 This is not an obvious pattern for the Swedish wills. Infigure2(p. 366), “large testaments with many movables” are defined as those with more than ten bequests of movable property. In fact, many of them had as many as 50–100 legacies of objects and livestock. More than 80 such comprehensive testaments have been preserved from the period. Similar wills are known from the 15th century, but they are much fewer.19 (Scania is excluded, as the results from this province are included among the Danish testaments; see below.) At this stage, we can turn to the other Nordic countries, and they have fewer testaments with movable goods. For Denmark I have used a publi365
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjYyNDk=