Nordic inheritance law through the ages. Spaces of action and legal strategies

Abstract

As the old adage goes, nothing is certain in this world but death and taxes. Perhaps the same also applies to inheritance law. From time immemorial, societies have had to respond to and deal with the death of its members: ‘where people live in society, there will be rules concerning succession’. Inheritance law constitutes one of the most basic and comprehensive fields for the regulation of society. By its nature, inheritance legislation is traditional, conservative and changes very slowly. Sometimes its regulations are even regarded as a legal order dictated by nature, history or a higher power, and as such almost impossible to change. New laws of inheritance are seldom issued, but in the Nordic countries, both Denmark and Norway have recently reformed their inheritance regulations. So perhaps now is an excellent opportunity to shed light upon the historical roots of inheritance law in the Nordic context. For a legal historian with an interest in family law, the anthology Nordic Inheritance Law through the Ages (hereinafter, Nordic Inheritance Law) is a most welcomed book. The anthology explores the significance of inheritance law from medieval times to the present through topical and in-depth studies that breathe life into historical and contemporary inheritance practices. The contributors to Nordic Inheritance Law, 16 in total, are a mixture of historians, legal historians and contemporary lawyers from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. The anthology is an outcome of a Nordic interdisciplinary research project, hosted and financed by The Centre for Advanced Studies at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters in Oslo during the academic year 2014–5. In the Nordic countries, a region consisting of contemporary Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, inheritance law has not always been the most researched field in legal history, nor in contemporary jurisprudence for that matter. Previous research in legal history has focused foremost on medieval aspects of inheritance and inheritance law, and it is just in the last 20–30 years that light has been shed over other historical periods as well. The broad timespan of