Testaments, in later medieval Ireland, were the sets of instructions, left on their death by testators, for the burial of their body and for the disposition of such of their property as was at their free disposal, and appointing executors to ensure that these wishes were carried out.
Testaments of this general type were a common feature of general Western European legal practice, but seem only to have been introduced into Ireland by the Synod of Cashel of 1172. Testaments seem most commonly to have been made in writing. They could also be made orally, provided there were witnesses to prove what the testator had said. They were normally made on the testator’s deathbed. Indeed, the Synod of Cashel required them to be made in the testator’s last sickness in the presence of his confessor and neighbors. The executors were required to probate the testament, normally in the local bishop’s court—that is, to produce the testament and prove it was genuine—before they would be authorized by sealed letters of administration to carry out the testator’s last instructions. For testators who had property in towns, a second probate in the town court was often required. The executors could then proceed to pay the debts of the deceased, collect moneys owing to him, and then distribute his or her estate. When they had finished doing so they were required to provide written accounts of their administration to the bishop’s court. In general principle, lands, houses, and other similar kinds of property could not be left by testament and were supposed to pass by the general rules of intestate inheritance, except in towns where local town or city custom authorized this. Married men, on their deaths, had at their free disposal only one third (if they had a wife and children) or one-half (if they had only a wife) of their money and other goods. Under secular law married women could only make testaments with the consent of their husbands, and of such property as the husband assigned to them. The term "last will" or "will" was often used as a synonym for testament, but it was also used more specifically from the later fourteenth century onward for the instructions left to trustees (feoffees to uses), who held the nominal legal title to lands, to execute the wishes of the beneficial owner of the lands after their death. Last wills of this kind effectively gave landowners a power of testation over their lands and allowed them to determine to whom they passed. Wills did not require probate, but were often included in testaments and probated with them. Some original testaments and wills survive in collections of medieval deeds, and others as copied into cartularies. There is also a single surviving (and published) register of enrolled copies of testaments and wills, plus accompanying inventories of the possessions of the deceased testator submitted by the executors at the time of probate, for the diocese of Dublin for the period from1457 to 1483.
