Women, dowries and agency

Marriage in fifteenth–century Valencia

Dana Wessell Lightfoot

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780719089466
• eBook ISBN: 9781526112446
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Social History
• Index: History

This book examines labouring-status women in late medieval Valencia as they negotiated the fundamentally defining experience of their lives: marriage. Through the use of notarial records and civil court cases, it argues that the socio-economic and immigrant status of these women greatly enhanced their ability to exercise agency not only in choosing a spouse and gathering dotal assets, but also in controlling this property after they wed. Although the prevailing legal code in Valencia appeared to give wives little authority over these assets, court records demonstrate that they were still able to negotiate a measure of control. In these actions, labouring-status wives exercised agency by protecting their marital goods from harm, using legal statutes to their own advantage.In looking at the experiences of labouring-status women, this monograph shifts the debate regarding women's access to and control of property in the medieval period. Exploring a group previously unexamined by scholars, it argues that our understanding of women's marital strategies changes, challenging the central role of blood and marital kin in these negotiations.

1

The making of marriage in fifteenth-century Valencia: canon law, civil law and community opinion

When Teresa Dauder arrived in Valencia at the age of 12 to work as a servant in the Oviets’ household, she came to a city on the rise. The fifteenth century has been described by historians as the ‘Golden Age’ for the city of Valencia. Culturally, this century was characterized by the artistic and literary splendour of writers such as Ausiàs March and Jaume Roig. Economically, its manufacturing and commercial activity flourished as Valencia became a central port in the Mediterranean trade routes. Politically, it came to dominate the kingdom of which it was the capital, as nobles and urban patricians consolidated their power. During the course of the fifteenth century, Valencia became the centre of the Crown of Aragon, the wider polity of which it was a part, as it entered a period of prosperity while other cities in the Crown were on the decline. The city reached its zenith in the latter half of the century, but the first fifty years saw important developments in manufacturing and commerce as well as demographic expansion that provided it with the population necessary to flourish.

Conquered from the Muslims by Jaume I in 1238, the city of Valencia and its surrounding horta² soon came to be the power centre of Jaume’s newly created kingdom. Concerned not to have limitations placed on his power as in his other domains of Aragon and Catalonia, Jaume made Valencia autonomous and independent with its own distinct kingdom-wide legal code, the Furs. Most of those who settled in Valencia were from Catalonia and Aragon, but the kingdom gradually became Catalanized, both culturally and linguistically.³ Up until the end of the fourteenth century, the city had numerous Muslims and Jews living within it, making Valencia one of the most religiously and culturally plural cities in the Crown of Aragon. The thriving Jewish community was 2,500 strong but the pogroms which swept across the Iberian peninsula in 1391 decimated it, leaving Valencia with only conversos, Jews who had converted to Christianity, some of them by force.⁴ Over the course of the fifteenth century, Valencia became the dominant urban centre in the Crown of Aragon, eclipsing Barcelona. Although Barcelona had predominated in the fourteenth century, the hundred years that followed were not kind to the city. A disastrous civil war fought between royalists supporting the recently installed Castilian Trastamara dynasty and the patricians of Barcelona facilitated the decline of the city and allowed the rise of Valencia, both the city and the kingdom, in comparison.⁵ This was especially true in economic terms, as the city of Valencia took over the role of the central port of the Crown of Aragon from Barcelona.⁶

Valencia’s ascent to its position of power in the fifteenth century began in the post-Black Death period of the late fourteenth century. Although the city experienced its share of difficulties in this period due to plague, famine, drought and war, these were offset by a dynamic population and economy that was fuelled by immigration.⁷ Indeed Valencia did not experience the same kind of recession as Catalonia and many other European countries after 1348. The city’s recovery from the disasters of the Black Death and its repercussions was quick and within twenty-five years, the population was growing again at an even faster rate, despite repeated waves of plague, famines, droughts, the flooding of the city four times by the river Turia from 1356 to 1403 and even an earthquake in 1396.⁸ Valencia’s population almost doubled from 1355 to 1418, and grew again by one-third from 1418 to 1489.⁹ By the end of the fifteenth century, 45,000 people lived within its walls, with a further 20,000 to 25,000 in the surrounding countryside.¹⁰ This demographic expansion is even more extraordinary since Valencia experienced 28 epidemics from 1400 to 1512, with 7,200 deaths in 1439, 11,000 in 1450 and another 12,000 nine years later.¹¹

As the centre of government, manufacturing and commerce, the city dominated the entire kingdom and it acted as a magnet for those seeking to improve their fortunes. Those who came to Valencia were from across the Iberian peninsula, as well as from other parts of Europe, most notably Italy. They were attracted to the city’s economic dynamism, a condition that was not transferred to the kingdom as a whole. Fifty per cent of those that immigrated to the city of Valencia were from other areas in the kingdom. So, while its population exploded, other regions experienced severe demographic decline. The northern part of the kingdom faced the greatest losses in population, while the south increased in opposition. For example, the town of Morella, located in the extreme north of the kingdom, went from a population of 2,898 hearths in 1418 to 254 in 1469. Overall, by the middle of the fifteenth century, the north and central part of the kingdom lost 40 to 50 per cent of its population.¹²

Legally, when the new immigrants arrived in the city of Valencia, they were to appear before the justice and the jurats¹³ of the city, swearing to uphold the obligations of a resident.¹⁴ This oath meant that they had to keep the city’s laws and pay certain taxes. They also had to indicate whether or not they were going to be a true resident by establishing their household in the city. Now deemed a vehi (resident), the scribe of the municipal council would record the day and year that the immigrant was received as a resident, and the name of the parish and street where he or she lived. If the vehi or vehina wanted to move, he or she would have to come before the justice and jurats again to request permission to do so.¹⁵ All of these regulations were designed to allow the municipal council to keep track of the city’s residents, therefore making it easier for them to collect taxes. Immigrants who did not keep their obligations as promised on arrival could lose their residency rights. Both the monarchy and the municipal consell established methods of investigating newcomers and instituting penalties for those who did not uphold their responsibilities.¹⁶

Despite these regulations, huge numbers of individuals and families who immigrated to Valencia did not go through this process, making it impossible to discern accurately just how many people actually moved to the city during this period. This group of immigrants were largely journeymen artisans, llauradors¹⁷ and labourers, attracted by better conditions and increasing economic opportunities. Women also moved to Valencia, either on their own as domestic servants, or with their husbands and families. Immigration such as this helped to fuel the expansion of industrial activity and manufacturing in the city.¹⁸ Neighbourhoods saw a constant flux of activity, as artisans and llauradors moved in and out, trying to improve their economic lot. As the city’s economy was based on commerce, artisanal industry and agricultural production, those of labouring-status had numerous economic opportunities.

Although Valencian artisans were engaged in a variety of trades, the city’s three main industries were ironwork, leatherwork and textiles. Cloth production was central and the city became a leading producer of medium-quality cloth.¹⁹ Fullers, carders, weavers, dyers, tailors but most of all wooldressers made up a large percentage of the artisans plying their trade in the city. There were also great numbers of blacksmiths, shoemakers, cobblers and tanners of various kinds. Over the course of the fifteenth century, artisanal trades became increasingly specialized with trades like tanners being broken down into more specific categories such as blanquers, asaonadors and aluders.²⁰ Production was based on the family workshop, headed by a master artisan and powered by the work of journeymen and apprentices. Wives often worked alongside their husbands or performed other economic tasks to help keep their households afloat.²¹ In certain types of production, such as cloth making, rural workers were hired by merchants to do piecework, although this practice was discouraged by master and journeymen artisans.²²

Trades in Valencia were organized and regulated by confraternities, or guilds, which became increasingly elitist as the fifteenth century progressed. When Jaume I first conquered Valencia from the Muslims in the early thirteenth century, he forbade the establishment of guild structures out of concern that the presence of such organizations would create problems of social order.²³ In 1329, this prohibition was lifted and within three years, twenty confraternities organized by trade were reorganized or introduced; however, it was not until the mid-fifteenth century that these organizations developed into true guilds.²⁴ While initially masters and journeymen of particular trades had their own separate corporations, by the mid-fifteenth century, these had been combined into a single guild. For example, in 1380, the wooldresser guild was divided between journeymen attached to the parish of Holy Trinity and masters, connected to that of the Archangel Michael. Within a hundred years, these two corporations were combined into one, with their ordinances approved by the municipal council.²⁵ The group of families of master status in each guild was solidified during the fifteenth century, and journeymen who were not related by blood were rarely able to join their ranks.

Although Valencian women were able to join guilds on their own, their participation and movement within these corporations was circumscribed. It was rare for a woman to become a master, except as a widow and female artisans who practised trades different from their husbands tended to cluster in low-skilled, low-paid crafts connected to the textile trade such as spinning and carding.²⁶ While we do see some girls signing apprenticeship contracts,²⁷ they were not necessarily allowed to complete the exams which would move them up to journeyman status. The exclusion of women from higher-status trades and guild positions in Valencia is not surprising, given the political roles that guilds played in the city. Unlike other cities in southern Europe during the late medieval period, master artisans served as municipal councillors.²⁸ Women’s position within the guild structures of fifteenth-century Valencia was therefore largely as the wives of masters and journeymen, participating in the social and charitable activities of the corporations but not necessarily the economic aspects. This does not mean that women were not involved in artisanal production in Valencia during this time but that they were often working outside of guild regulations or alongside their husbands and fathers in family workshops.

In Barcelona, the situation for women’s participation in guilds was comparable to Valencia. In some cases, women (often widows) were able to run workshops, especially in the clothing and textile trades.²⁹ Although women worked as apprentices in many trades, their rights to practise those crafts and move up through the ranks of a guild varied. For example, the guild of the linen weavers allowed women to complete their exams and have full membership in the corporation. In contrast, the guild of the coral workers forbade women from teaching apprentices without a formal licence which could only be obtained with special dispensation.³⁰ Elsewhere in the Iberian peninsula, women’s access to and participation in guilds varied a great deal. In some areas, despite working as apprentices within particular trades, women were forbidden from completing exams, as ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• List of Tables
• Acknowledgements
• Map of Valencia and the Horta
• Introduction
• 1 The making of marriage in fifteenth-century Valencia: canon law, civil law and community opinion
• 2 Marital alliances and the choice of spouse
• 3 Marital property of labouring-status wives
• 4 Germanía contracts: the exception to the rule
• 5 Earning the dowry: domestic service and donations
• 6 The right to property: dowry restitution in fifteenth-century Valencia
• Conclusion
• Appendix
• Bibliography
• Index