Inheritance law comprises the legal norms regulating the fate of the property (estate) of a person (the decedent) after his or her death (inheritance). In the early modern period, inheritance and police ordinances and ultimately codifications (e.g. the Allgemeines Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch [ABGB] of 1812, the Allgemeines Landrecht für die preußischen Staaten [ALR] of 1794) supplanted customary law. Inheritance law now primarily served a distributory function, since rising life expectancy meant that the provision of adult children with property ha…
Inheritance law(1,083 words)
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Brauneder, Wilhelm, “Inheritance law”, in: Encyclopedia of Early Modern History Online, Editors of the English edition: Graeme Dunphy, Andrew Gow. Original German Edition: Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit. Im Auftrag des Kulturwissenschaftlichen Instituts (Essen) und in Verbindung mit den Fachherausgebern herausgegeben von Friedrich Jaeger. Copyright © J.B. Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung und Carl Ernst Poeschel Verlag GmbH 2005–2012. Consulted online on 01 April 2023 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2352-0272_emho_SIM_018859>
First published online: 2015
First print edition: 20190124
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