ABSTRACT

This chapter illustrates the legal norm and practice of undivided property amongst brothers and the renunciation of inheritance of daughters and sisters in families of the low nobility in early modern Tyrol: the families of the Trapp and the Wolkenstein-Trostburg. In early modern Tyrol, brothers and sisters were encouraged to follow the chief objectives and to subordinate their own interests to the collective aims. In the Tyrolean Law Code, undivided property of brothers and the daughters' and sisters' general renunciation of their inheritance are regarded as practised strategies of the nobility to protect their property. The Tyrolean Law Code strictly distinguishes between an Auszeigung among noble brothers or cousins and a definite partition of the estate. Undivided property and allocations of usage rights among brothers and cousins are only two aspects in the ambivalent dealings with property rights that can be analysed on the basis of the wealth arrangements of the families Trapp and Wolkenstein-Trostburg.