engleski

Economic and legal position of urban noble women of Zadar and Split in the thirteenth and the fourteenth century

There are relatively few works of Croatian historiography which deal with the social position of women in medieval Dalmatia. This paper, concentrates at the economic and legal position of women in Zadar and Split, especially those belonging to the highest layer of urban society. I will try to give general picture about the role of urban noble women in economic and legal life of these communes. My research is based on unpublished and published sources (notarial documents) and on the legal texts such as the law-codes (statutes) of Zadar and Split which give mosaic picture about the position of noble women in urban society. Business life of noble women in Dalmatia greatly depended on their belonging to certain social class and also on their marrital status (whether they were married, single or widowed). As it can be seen from notarial documents women who belonged to the lower class of society had much more opportunities in making business than noble women whose social status in fact did not allow them to do it. Despite that fact, sources give much data about businnes life of noble women. They made their business sometime by themselves and sometime by their intermediaries. In the most cases their business life was connected with renting lands and money-lending. The are also few cases of investing money in trade. The paper also deals with the legal position of urban noble women, especially with the question of their inheritance rights and their appereance at courts as procurators, executors of wills and witnesses.

gender history; social history; the Middle Ages; urban nobility; Zadar; Split; Dalmatia

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