# The Institutes of Justinian 1.570-582

Roman Law and Society, The Institutes of Justinian, Lines 1.570-1.582. Latin.

Canonical: https://interlinea.aeterna-institute.org/library/latin/roman-law-and-society/the-institutes-of-justinian/1.570

12. It is immaterial whether a testament be written upon a tablet, upon paper, parchment, or any other substance.
13. Any person may execute any number of duplicates of the same testament, each, however, being made with prescribed forms. This may be sometimes necessary; as, for instance, when a man who is going on a voyage is desirous to carry with him, and also to leave at home, a memorial of his last wishes; or for any other of the numberless reasons that may arise from the various necessities of mankind.
14. Thus much may suffice concerning written testaments. But if any one wishes to make a testament, valid by the civil law, without writing, he may do so, in the presence of seven witnesses, verbally declaring his wishes, and this will be a testament perfectly valid according to the civil law, and confirmed by imperial constitutiones.
BOOK III. INTESTATE SUCCESSION.
A person dies intestate, who either has made no testament at all, or has made one not legally valid; or if the testament he has made is revoked, or made useless; or if no one becomes heir under it.
1. The inheritances of intestates, by the law of the Twelve Tables, belong in the first place to the sui heredes.
2. And, as we have observed before, those as sui heredes who, at the death of the deceased, were under his power; as a son or a daughter, a grandson or a granddaughter by a son, a great-grandson or great-granddaughter by a grandson of a son; nor does it make any difference whether these children are natural or adopted. We must also reckon among them those, who, though not born in lawful wedlock, nevertheless, according to the tenor of the imperial constitutiones, acquire the rights of sui heredes by being presented to the curiae of their cities; as also those to whom our own constitutiones refer, which enact that, if any person has lived with a woman not originally intending to marry her, but whom he is not prohibited to marry, and shall have children by her, and shall afterwards, feeling towards her the affection of a husband, enter into an act of marriage with her, and have by her sons or daughters, not only those born after the settlement of the dowry shall be legitimate, and in the power of the father, but also those born before, who gave occasion to the legitimacy of the children born after. And this law shall obtain, although no children are born subsequent to the making of the act of dowry, or those born are all a great-grandson or great-granddaughter, are not reckoned the sui heredes, unless the person preceding them in degree has ceased to be under the power of the decedent, either by death, or some other means, as by emancipation. For, if a son, when the grandfather died, was under the power of his father, the grandson cannot be suus heres of his grandfather; and so with regard to all other descendants. Posthumous children, also, who would have been under the power of their father, if they had been born in his lifetime, are sui heredes.

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Roman Law and Society, The Institutes of Justinian. Text: The Latin Library (thelatinlibrary.com), used with permission. Changes: HTML markup removed and the text divided into reading sections by Interlinea.
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