In message of 28 Oct, "Paul Prescott" <paul.prescott@toranean.freeserve.co.uk> wrote: > Tim: > > > My understanding is that at least up to the 18th century and probably > > also the 19th, it was impossible to leave anything to an illegitimate > > offspring. So I suspect most of this will was invalid. > > I don't quite understand this, as it was possible to leave things > to close relatives, distant relatives, "kinsmen", friends, servants, > in fact to any named individual. And all of these frequently > happened in wills. So why not to illegitimate children? I do not know old law so cannot give you a proper answer. But there was also the concept of attainder, by which a person was declared, effectively, to be a non-person; they lost their goods and usually also their life. This was quite familiar to medieval people, though an Act of Attainder could also be repealed, sometimes after the death of the attainted. I believe a murderer was classified in much the same way, as someone with no assets, etc. So it would not have been entirely foreign to classify an illegitimate person as being a bit of a non-person without proper parents. Anyhow it was definitely in the interests of any legitimate offspring to get their illegitimate sibling debarred from any property. Having said all that, look at William the Conqueror: he was illegitimate and was given the duchy by inheritance! (Albeit in his father's lifetime.) -- Tim Powys-Lybbe tim@powys.org For a miscellany of bygones: http://powys.org