ABSTRACT
Most men died without having made a will. While a widow was usually named executrix in her husband's will, where her husband died intestate she was legally entitled to administer his estate. When male executors renounced responsibility the usual expression was that they 'declined the trouble'. The widows who renounced administration were also declining what they perceived might be trouble in their husbands' estates: in most of the twenty renunciations the husband's debts exceeded his assets, or at least threatened to do so. A woman who chose to administer her husband's estate but went into debt as a result may also have had her own property, and enough of it to cover her husband's debts. When a husband died intestate leaving a wife and children, his widow was entitled by ecclesiastical law to one third of his moveables, after his debts had been paid.
