<i>Devising, Dying and Dispute: Probate Litigation in Early Modern England</i>, by Lloyd Bonfield
Notice bibliographique
Résumé
Devising, Dying and Dispute: Probate Litigation in Early Modern England, by Lloyd Bonfield. Burlington, Vermont, Ashgate Publishing, 2012. xvi, 293 pp. $119.95 US (cloth). Few people currently think to turn to the wills, allegations, depositions, and sentences associated with the PCC and housed in the mighty National Archives for stories of marriages gone bad, prodigal sons, and cheating servants, but tales of familiar discord is just one tale that Lloyd Bonfield's Devising, Dying and Dispute seeks to tell. The other is a legal examination of the reasons behind the tightening up of will-making requirements, and particularly the effect that the Statute of Fraud (1677) had on the process. Bonfield more successfully engages with the law than with the family, but has nonetheless alerted us to the virtually unexplored and important source of social history, offering tantalizing glimpses of the stories that lie within. Bonfield grounds his three-part volume with introductory chapters on the culture of will-making. He describes a messy world that generated competing copies of single wills, multiple and antagonistic executors, questionable legacies, and a legal environment that placed the burden of sorting out fact from fiction on the judge. The two chapters of Part I clearly and succinctly set out the distinctive history of English will-making and its place in the Church Courts, the Statute of Frauds, and an overview of reasons behind testamentary litigation (uncontested probates and issues of mental capacity and coercion tie for the lead). Bonfield next outlines his hypothesis that frames two-thirds of the book: Was the Statute of Frauds adopted to decrease the level of litigation? If so, it only worked in decreasing the number of contested oral wills. Bonfield writes about legal issues with a simple and clear prose style that highlights the relevancy of 300-year-old legislation for today's world, as well as making quite technical aspects of the law understandable for those in other fields. The second section is a fascinating and careful exploration of issues of mental capacity and coercion, particularly surrounding nuncupative wills. It is here that Bonfield's fine legal mind shines. Even with advanced estate planning, last minute changes to a will could raise a slew of questions surrounding the testator's true intent, and it is here that we begin to see the less scrupuless side of human behaviour, as weak and dying individuals were subjected to manipulation and fraud. Bonfield's discussion of the legal understanding of mental incapacity has important implication for our understanding of growing old, as well as an appreciation of what was at stake for friends and family. The book's final section is at once its weakest and most exciting part. Entitled Windows into Social Relationships, the final three chapters seek to explore the dynamics of family relations and enigmatic human conduct (p. 177). Chapter eight explores the issue of how to prove a valid marriage, a particularly vexing problem for judges in the face of multiple claimants for the role of surviving spouse. …
Récupéré en direct depuis OpenAlex et désinversé. Les résumés ne sont pas conservés dans cette base de données : les index inversés représentent 8,6 Go des 9,3 Go de texte de la base, et le serveur dispose de 13 Go libres.
Comment cette classification a été obtenuedéplier
Prédiction distillée sur la base complète
Imitation des enseignantsNi prévalence calibrée, ni vérité terrain. Validation humaine à venir. Apprise à partir de 10 348 étiquettes directes de Codex et de 10 348 étiquettes directes de Gemma. Le mode candidate est l'union des têtes enseignantes seuillées; le consensus est leur intersection. Ces sorties portent le statut machine_predicted_unvalidated et ne sont ni des étiquettes humaines ni des étiquettes directes de modèles de pointe.
Scores Codex et Gemma par catégorie
| Catégorie | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Métarecherche | 0,000 | 0,000 |
| Méta-épidémiologie (sens strict) | 0,000 | 0,000 |
| Méta-épidémiologie (sens large) | 0,000 | 0,000 |
| Bibliométrie | 0,000 | 0,000 |
| Études des sciences et des technologies | 0,000 | 0,000 |
| Communication savante | 0,000 | 0,000 |
| Science ouverte | 0,000 | 0,000 |
| Intégrité de la recherche | 0,000 | 0,000 |
| Charge utile insuffisante (le modèle a refusé de juger) | 0,000 | 0,000 |
Scores machine (provisoires)
Les deux têtes enseignantes du modèle étudiant, lues sur ce travail. Un score ordonne la base pour la relecture; il n'affirme jamais une catégorie, et le statut de validation accompagne chaque rangée tel quel.
Scores de référence d'un modèle non mature (critères de maturité non atteints, 7 itérations). Un score ordonne; il n'affirme jamais une catégorie.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · tel quel depuis la passe de notation : score_only signifie que le nombre peut ordonner les travaux, et qu'aucune étiquette de catégorie n'en découleClassification
machine, non validéePrédiction automatique; un appel candidat d’une seule tête enseignante, pas un consensus.
Le détail, modèle par modèle et score par score, se trouve en fin de page sous « Comment cette classification a été obtenue ».