thérèse de hemptinne & els de paermentier understood as the outcome of a strategic and dynamic decision-making process with responsibilities shared among the testator, the successor, and the executors, with the main aim of restoring and maintaining power balances and financial stability in the princely domains. In the counties of Flanders and Hainaut, which were governed by the same dynasty from the late twelfth century onwards, the oldest material evidence of a formal, comprehensive record of a ruler’s last will in the form of a solemn sealed charter, aimed at settling their inheritance and ensuring the salvation of their soul, dates back to the second quarter of the thirteenth century. It concerns the last will (1231) of Count Ferrand of Portugal, first husband of Countess Joan of Constantinople.2 However, older sources suggest that written ‘proto-testamentary’ practices were already in use during the last quarter of the twelfth century. In June 1177, shortly before his departure on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, Philip of Alsace, count of Flanders and Vermandois, made a series of donations of annual rents to provide wine and bread for the Mass to more than sixty-five religious institutions in his counties in the form of small sealed charters, for the salvation of his soul.3 Fourteen years later (1191), again in the same form, he and his second wife Matilda of Portugal donated their chapel, along with religious objects and relics brought from the Holy Land, to the abbey of Clairvaux, with the explicit mention that they both wished to be buried there.4 Although the first series of sealed 447 2 According to Godding 1982, p.279, the use of written testaments was not a common practice in the southern Low Countries before the end of the twelfth century. See also Godding 1990, p. 281. 3 de Hemptinne et al.2001, n. 449–451, 457, 461–521: pro salute anime mee, dedi in elemosinam. 4 de Hemptinne et al. 2009, n. 846 and 847, and DiBeID8994 and 8610. All references to Diplomata Belgica in this article will be written as DiBeID+ reference number. Twelfth-century ‘proto-testamentary’ practices in Flanders figure1: Map of the counties of Flanders and Hainaut around the middle of the thirteenth century.
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