thérèse de hemptinne & els de paermentier the various beneficiaries and their corresponding bequests were immediately listed in detail in the testator’s last will or codicil, although often it only specified a total amount to be distributed to religious houses, leaving the final decision on the allocation of the legacies to the testamentary executors.45 Since the Belgian legal historian Philippe Godding considers the early thirteenth-century testaments to be primarily religious documents, given their deep concern for pious alms and initiatives to promote charity as a means to atone for the testator’s sins and redeem his soul,46 it is no coincidence that these executors usually sought the advice of religious dignitaries, usually bishops in whose dioceses the beneficiaries were located, Franciscans or Dominicans, before deciding on the destination of the bequeathed money gifts or goods.47 This consultation occurred as well when the surviving partner acted as executor, as illustrated by a sealed charter of Countess Joan (December 1233) in which she, in the execution of her husband’s testament, granted an annual rent of 100solidi to the hospital of Lille after taking advice from the bishop of Tournai.48 Who were those eligible to act as testamentary executors? In Flanders, lay testators primarily appointed their surviving partners or other relatives.49 However, in the testaments of the counts of Flanders, other confidants or highly ranked ecclesiastical dignitaries were also named as executors. For instance, in the testament of Countess Joan (December 1244), the bishops of Cambrai and Tournai, together with the abbot of Saint John Baptist in Valenciennes, the scholaster of Cambrai, the dean of La Salle, and the provost of Saint Peter in Douai, Gilles of Bredene, 459 45 DiBe ID18967 (March 1231): Insuper assigno [Count Ferrand] decem milia librarum distribuenda in restitutiones et in elemosinas pro me faciendas prout ego ordinabo; et si forsitan aliquo casu contingat quod ego ad plenum non ordinavero modos restitutionum et elemosinarum quibus dispono fieri de pecunia memorata, illi quibus executionem presentis testamenti committam super hiis ordinent et disponant prout saluti anime mee viderint melius expedire. 46 Godding 1990, pp. 291, 296. 47 See, for example, DiBeID27026 and 27027 (both dated in August 1233). By the end of the thirteenth century, these counsellors were referred to as ‘overtestamenteurs’ in the vernacular. Godding 1990, p. 295 n. 87. 48 DiBe ID19658. 49 Godding 1990, pp. 294–295. DiBe ID27059, 22716, and 22697, where Countess Margaret acts as executor of her sister’s testament.
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