testamentary practices at the comital court in flanders and hainaut and countesses took great care to ensure that their wills were strictly and precisely executed, leaving themselves, as testators, the only persons legally allowed to amend the text by codicil. Interestingly, at this point there are little noticeable gender-related differences in the recording of male and female testator’s wills. Instead, it appears that political circumstances and pragmatic needs have determined their content and form. Theinstrumentumfulfilled all conditions to ensure its validity: the use of correct formulas, valid authentication through the attachment of a seal, and the attestation of witnesses. Important churchmen were repeatedly asked to legally confirm the count’s testament through aninspeximus. At a later stage, individual charters of confirmation by testamentary executors occur. From the 1320s onwards, written authentication was preferably done by professional notaries. The formalisation and execution of a written testament involved a wide variety of documents in which the whole process was meticulously written down, almost all in the form of separate sealed charters. However, despite this growing need for written evidence of one’s last will, oral performance through oaths and reliance on executors by the requirement to take them at their own word, remained important until the mid-thirteenth century. In the counties of Flanders and Hainaut, where the thirteenth century was marked by a series of geopolitical conflicts and a succession war with far-reaching consequences, it has been demonstrated that testaments can hardly be considered static records of one’s piety or ultima voluntas regarding the transfer of movable and immovable property. Rather, they should be interpreted as the result of a strategic and dynamic decisionmaking process with responsibilities shared among the testator, successors, counsellors, and executors alike, and with the main objective of restoring power balances and financial stability in the princely domains. 466
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