But at all events the identification of heir and ancestor still approached the nature of a universal succession in the time of Bracton, as is shown by another statement of his. He asks if the testator can bequeath his rights of action, and answers, No, so far as concerns debts not proved and recovered in the testator's life. But actions of that sort belong to the heirs, and must be sued in the secular court; for before they are so recovered in the proper court, the executor cannot proceed for them in the ecclesiastical tribunal.英文原著 · 《The Common Law》
The express fiction of inheritance perhaps stopped here. But when a similar joinder of times was allowed between a legatee or devisee (legatarius) and his testator, the same explanation was offered. It was said, that, when a specific thing was left to a person by will, so far as concerned having the benefit of the time during which the testator had been in possession for the purpose of acquiring a title, the legatee was in a certain sense quasi an heir. /1/ Yet a legatarius was not a universal successor, and for most purposes stood in marked contrast with such successors.英文原著 · 《The Common Law》
Crawford looked surprised. "Where did you learn to write a will?" he asked. "I used in my days of poverty to copy documents for a lawyer," she replied. "In this way I became something of a lawyer myself."
"I see. Will you read what you have prepared?"
Mrs. Crawford read the document in her hand. It provided in the proper legal phraseology for an equal division of the testator's estate between the widow and Carl. "I didn't know, of course, what provision you intended to make for me," she said, meekly.英文原著 · 《Driven From Home》
"The testator had no children of his own to inherit, I suppose," remarked Mr. Taylor.英文原著 · 《Elinor Wyllys-1》
The codicil was, of course, a very recent one; but it was executed in proper form; it required two pages of engrossing to make the testator's desires plain to every intelligence that had received a thorough training in legal technicalities. It was susceptible of a good deal of interpretation to an ordinary intelligence.英文原著 · 《Phyllis of Philistia》
Again, the appointment of an executor relates back to the date of the testator's death. The continuity of person [345] is preserved by this fiction, as in Rome it was by personifying the inheritance ad interim.英文原著 · 《The Common Law》