Subject-of-law scope of testamentary succession in the Lithuanian Statutes

The testamentary disposition was subjected to the regulation in the Lithuanian Statutes (of 1529, 1566, 1588) which were tantamount to the codification of law in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In the First Statute (of 1529) the regulation was not much extended but in the next Statutes it developed. When compared with the First Statute, the regulations found in the Statutes that followed were responsible not only for the increase in questions that were subjected to regulations but also for the deep modification of the subject‐of‐law scope of testamentary succession. This was due to the general tendency detectable in the evolving Lithuanian law. The tendency consisted in the facilitating of the conclusions of inter vivos legal transactions referring to the real property. This had positive effects on economic development. At the same time the control of the monarch over the alienation of real property was dropped (1566). On the other hand there was imposed the ban on the testamentary dispositions referring to the real property. This inter alia was designed to protect the family property against the legacies made for the benefit of Church institutions. As a result, the Lithuanian testament, which preciously followed the German pattern and was a collection of legacies, became, upon the Second Lithuanian Statute, the instrument designed to dispose exclusively of the movables