The socialized will: Deduction of the question whether Duke Ulrich I of Württemberg (1487–1550) had “rightful power or permission” to “testify, create, order or dispose” his succession?

Abstract

Wills are an indispensable source for historical research. They provide insights into early modern life. Princes’ wills are regarded as a source for the study of early modern politics and, more recently, of aristocratic communication and self-positioning. The contribution would like to broaden the view, to understand the dispositions of princes as historical snapshots with the help of which transfers of property and dominion at the beginning of the sixteenth century can be illuminated as situational and constellationrelated processes. At the center of the considerations are Ulrich von Württemberg and his plans to hand over the duchy to his half-brother and their legal appraisal by the Nuremberg legal scholar Franz Frosch (1490–1540).