Responsa for Ketubot 95:17

Q. The bishop imprisoned B in order to extort money from him. B said to A: "You owe me eight marks, give five marks to the bishop". Meanwhile a rich Jew promised to speak to the bishop on B's behalf and assured B that he would thus effect his release. A, however, gave five marks to the bishop and B was released. Now B demands that A repay him the full eight marks.
A. A is under no obligation to repay the five marks to B since he carried out a direct order to pay this amount to the bishop. Moreover, had A acted on his own initiative and ransomed B without being requested to do so, he would still have been entitled to reimbursement, for a Jew should be ransomed even against his express will, and may be charged with the expenses thus incurred. The promise of the rich man to speak to the bishop was of no consequence, since he did not offer to spend money on B's behalf. We know that mere words are of no avail. The Gentiles are not moved by words, only money affects them. Those who fall into their hands have no hope for deliverance save through the payment of ransom.
This Responsum is addressed to Rabbi Haim Paltiel b. Jacob.
SOURCES: Cr. 32–3; Tesh. Maim. to Nezikin, 17. Cf. Maharil, Responsa 78.

b) Q. After A died L took over, and managed, his estate. Why, then, did you write that the estate was considered, nevertheless, to be in the possession of the orphans?
A. R. Hananel decided that the estate managed by the widow is considered to be in the possession of the orphans. The widow is merely a managing trustee. Therefore, all the profit accruing because of her management, belongs to the orphans and she can not collect her ketubah therefrom. When the widow demands her ketubah she loses her right to receive her sustenance from the estate. She must, then, take an oath while holding the Scroll of the Law; and whatever she thus states under oath to have given away, or to have retained for herself, to have given to her daughter, or to have given to charity, is deducted from her ketubah.

a) Q. A married L in Mayence, or in another locality, where the ketubah is valued at two hundred marks. They then removed to a different locality where the ketubah is valued at much less. They lived in the latter place until A's death. How much money is L entitled to as her ketubah?
A. The opinion of R. Simon b. Gamaliel (Ket. 110b) is accepted that a woman is entitled to the ketubah current in the locality where her marriage took place.
b) Q. After A died L took over, and managed, his estate. Why, then, did you write that the estate was considered, nevertheless, to be in the possession of the orphans?
A. R. Hananel decided that the estate managed by the widow is considered to be in the possession of the orphans. The widow is merely a managing trustee. Therefore, all the profit accruing because of her management, belongs to the orphans and she can not collect her ketubah therefrom. When the widow demands her ketubah she loses her right to receive her sustenance from the estate. She must, then, take an oath while holding the Scroll of the Law; and whatever she thus states under oath to have given away, or to have retained for herself, to have given to her daughter, or to have given to charity, is deducted from her ketubah.
c) Q. L lent some of the money to lords and "men of violence", and it is doubtful whether the latter will pay their debts.
A. L is responsible for these bad investments. Ordinarily when heirs pay the ketubah to a widow, they may give her in payment any kind of property, or any object even bran; but they cannot pay her by transferring to her money due them from others, since the collection of debts often involves litigations to which a woman is not accustomed. However, in our case, the orphans may transfer to L the money she has invested with the lords and the "men of violence", in payment of her ketubah, since she had no right to make such unsafe investments.
d) Q. While L managed the estate she gave presents to certain persons thinking she had the right to do so. Are the orphans entitled to take back the presents?
A. The recipients are entitled to retain these presents since they may claim that L gave them out of her own property, and since it appears that the market ordinance (takkanat hashuk) was to apply to property given away as presents.
e) Q. Do we put forth the claim for the benefit of the orphans that L may have been a widow when she married A, or that A may have paid her one Mina.?
A. We surely put forth the above claims for the benefit of the orphans. However, if a report circulates that L was a virgin when she married A, she is entitled to the ketubah of a virgin, since the majority of women are married while virgins. [The principle of "a majority of cases" presumes that what is true in most instances, is also true in our case.] Although in litigation over money matters the principle of "a majority of cases" is not a factor, it is so when the claimant is in actual possession of the litigated money. In our case, L is in actual possession of the money; therefore, the combination of a "majority" and a "report" in her favor, is conclusive.
SOURCES: Cr. 127–8–9–30–31; L. 480–1–2–3.

Q. A's mother defrayed the expenses of A's funeral but did so only in the nature of a loan to his estate. His widow, however, refused to repay the money to A's mother and insisted in taking his entire estate in payment of her ketubah.
A. A's funeral expenses must be defrayed with money taken from his estate, before his widow can collect her ketubah from it. Thus a person may not give away all his possessions to his heirs in the expectation that his funeral expenses would be paid from public funds (Ket. 48a); the same principle should apply when one gives away all his possessions to his wife. The claims of a creditor, however, should have priority over the decedent's funeral expenses, since the appropriation of a creditor's own money to pay another person's funeral expenses would constitute downright thievery. On the other hand, just as an exemption of bedding, food for thirty days, and clothing to last twelve months, is allowed to a bankrupt debtor (B. M. 113b), so an exemption of the bare funeral expenses should be allowed in the case of a decedent's insolvent estate as against both the creditor and the widow.
This Responsum is addressed to Rabbi Israel, and the decision is in direct contradiction of that recorded in Cr. 184; ibid. 243; Pr. 176; ibid. 964; Mord. Ket. 157; Rashba I, 1103; and Tashbetz, 491.
SOURCES: Pr. 926; Mordecai Hagadol, p. 176c.