anja thaller other types of writings,5 their mode of transmission, and access to dynastic archives. As a result, some wills of quite remarkable women may exist largely unnoticed in the scholarly discourse. A recent shift in historical approach has gradually turned the attention of late medieval studies towards questions of New Cultural History, encompassing topics related to dynasties and courts, death andmemoria, as well as gender history and material culture.6 Consequently, this shift has also resulted in efforts to fill gaps in research on wills of late medieval queens and noblewomen, although diplomatic studies of these wills remain very limited.7 The documents taken into consideration record the last wills of noble laywomen who, by birth or marriage, belonged to the highest ranks of nobility of the German-speaking territories of the Holy Roman Empire, the former Regnum Theuthonicum, including some individuals from comital families.8 The focus is on individual wills, not on joint wills of married couples.9 The period considered extends from the mid-13th century to the beginning of the Reformation around 1520, allowing the identification of cycles in traditions. Furthermore, this study adopts the criteria established by Schlögl for the wills of early and high medieval rulers, taking into account both formal and content-related factors: the selfdesignation as a testament, last will, or a similar act, together with a reference to the testatrix’s legal capacity, as well as unilateral testamentary 5 Heimann 1989; Antenhofer 2021, p. 198; see also below n. 57. 6 For the considerable output in these areas, see the latest detailed research overviews in Antenhofer 2021, pp. 22–45; Hörmann 2023, pp. 17–29. 7 Fößel 2008; Antenhofer 2021; Zeiler 2023. A concise analysis based on the edition of ten wills of the duchesses of Austria and countesses of Tyrol from 1200 to 1400 is offered in Hörmann 2023, pp. 534–544. 8 The wills of female members of families who issued charters in French (e.g. the counts and dukes of Bar, Luxembourg, Lorraine, Flanders, and Namur) and the wills of German noblewomen who married in the Franco- and Italophone areas of the Empire could not be taken into account. 9 For some dynastically oriented observations on testaments, see Czerny 2005; Babendererde 2006; Huthwelker 2009, in addition to the works cited in n. 7. 57 Definition and Transmission
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