Making a will in times of pandemic: historical precedents and present day

Abstract

The recent pandemic caused by COVID-19 has risen a completely disused testamentary form of the Civil Code, the will in times of epidemic, whose most genuine historical antecedent is the Roman testamentum tempore pestis. The article focuses on the old Roman succession institutions that contemplated epidemics and the imminent danger of death, its reception by Spanish historical law and the validity and practical value in the current pandemic of these types of testamentary forms, also contrasting the utility of the holographic will..