Heirs, Kin, and Creditors in Renaissance Florence

Thomas Kuehn is a graduate of Carleton College (B.A. 1972) and the University of Chicago (M.A. 1973, Ph.D. 1977). Professor Kuehn taught at Reed College for four years before going to Clemson University, where he has served as the History department chair since 2001. Among his many published works, Kuehn has written Emancipation in Late Medieval Florence (1982); Law, Family, and Women: Toward a Legal Anthropology of Renaissance Italy (1991); and Illegitimacy in Renaissance Florence (2002). His scholarship has been published in journals as diverse as Renaissance Quarterly, American Journal of Legal History, Continuity and Change, and the Journal of Women's History.

• Preface: the ambivalence of inheritance; Introduction: inheritance and kinship; 1. Family and inheritance; 2. Florentine laws regulating inheritance and repudiation; 3. Repudiation and inheritance; 4. Profile of Florentine repudiation and inheritance; 5. Repudiations and household wealth; 6. Repudiation as an inheritance practice; 7. Repudiations in dispute.

“The author of three monographs and a collection of articles, Thomas Kuehn has established himself as a leading authority on the social history of Renaissance Florence. The focus of his research has been the tension between the Italian legal tradition, as interpreted by jurisconsults, and its implementation in practice as it affected individual lives and fortunes. In Heirs, Kin, and Creditors, Kuehn has analyzed Florentine inheritance practices, concentrating specifically on the widespread practice of inheritance repudiation (some 11,000 cases between 1365 and 1534). His exploration of these cases of repudiation testifies ot the obsessive interest of Florentines in the patrimonies they inherited, and often repudiated, and their involvement in the pervasive litigation over the disposition of inherited property. This solidly researched study is a significant contribution to the scholarship on inheritance practices in Renaissance Florence.” -Gene Brucker, emeritus, University of California, Berkeley