704 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 
The Roman <TAlexandre, written about 1150, tells in the 
chapter next the last how Alexander the Great made his testa¬ 
ment. 1 He is represented as making bequests to his several 
generals. Among these is the bequest of his wife 1 , Roxana, andi 
her unborn child to his general Perdiccas. 2 
Of peculiar interest is the Vermdchtniss of Walther von der 
Vbgelweide, written about 1227. 3 As far as I can determine 
this testament stands alone in the German literature of that per¬ 
iod. His commentators can find no parallels, Wilmanns is 
forced to cite an instance far enough away from the testament in 
question. He points out in Roger von Hovenden a story of King 
Richard I of England who, being told by a priest that he had 
three wicked daughters whom he must marry off his hands, 
namely Pride, Avarice, and Sensuality, replied: “Do igitur 
superbiam meam superbis Templariis, et cupiditatem meam 
monachis de ordine Cisterciensis, et luxuriam meam praelatis 
ecclesiarum.” 
The significance of Walther ? s testament lies for us in the fact 
that it contains bequests of intangible property, certain abstract 
things. He leaves his ill-luck to the envious, his unhappiness, 
and sorrow to the liars, his stupidity to false lovers, and to 
women the pain of love-longing. In the Testamentum Porcelli 
we saw how certain tangible things were left satirically, as, for 
example, the bristles to the shoemakers, the jaws to the wrang¬ 
lers, the tongue to the lawyers, but this is the first Testament we 
have noted in which abstract things were left in this way. 
1 Alexandriade de Lambert le Court et Alexandre de Bernay, ed. 
E. Talbot Paris, 1861, p. 442. 
2 One’s relatives have always been regarded as property. Today 
parents still dispose of children by will. As a classic example of the 
disposition of relatives by will Lucian’s story of Eudamias of Corinth 
may be cited. It will also be remembered that we are told in the 
New Testament that Our Lord bequeathed his mother to St. John. 
3 W. Wilmanns, Walther van der Yogelweide, Halle, 1883, p. 258. 
