Virtue Rewarded, Disobedience and Vice Punished: Attitudes towards Inheritance Rights in Early Modern Swedish Law and Practice

Abstract

<p>This chapter, focusing on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Sweden, contends that arguments related to deserving the right to inherit were increasingly used after the Reformation. Relatives – especially women – neglecting family duties or dishonouring the family were thought to merit smaller inheritance lots or disinheritance. Conversely, arguments of special filial or sororal love, service and obedience were used as arguments for favouring some relatives and granting them more property than others. There was tension between the rigid rules of statutory inheritance of family lands and more individualistic inheritance strategies allowing property to be allotted to ‘deserving’ heirs, based on a subjective assessment of their behaviour. However, linking inheritance rights and lots to the virtuous or condemnable behaviour of the heir proved justification for individual preferences in inheritance planning. The chapter focuses especially on the relationship between parents and children as well as siblings in elite families through various sources, including court cases, wills and family letters. The increase in such arguments not only reflects the growth of existing source material, but also that they were more frequently used in practice than in the Middle Ages.<br /></p>