The Wealth of Wives: Women, Law & Economy in Late Medieval London

by Barbara A. Hanawalt

London became an international center for import and export trade in the late Middle Ages. The export of wool, the development of luxury crafts and the redistribution of goods from the continent made London one of the leading commercial cities of Europe. While capital for these ventures came from a variety of sources, the recirculation of wealth through London women was important in providing both material and social capital for the growth of London's economy. A shrewd Venetian visiting England around 1500 commented about the concentration of wealth and property in women's hands. He reported that London law divided a testator's property three ways allowing a third to the wife for her life use, a third for immediate inheritance of the heirs, and a third for burial and the benefit of the testator's soul. Women inherited equally with men and widows had custody of the wealth of minor children. In a society in which marriage was assumed to be a natural state for women, London women
married and remarried. Their wealth followed them in their marriages and was it was administered by subsequent husbands. This study, based on extensive use of primary source materials, shows that London's economic growth was in part due to the substantial wealth that women transmitted through marriage. The Italian visitor observed that London men, unlike Venetians, did not seek to establish long patrilineages discouraging women to remarry, but instead preferred to recirculate wealth through women. London's social structure, therefore, was horizontal, spreading wealth among guilds rather than lineages. The liquidity of wealth was important to a growing commercial society and women brought not only wealth but social prestige and trade skills as well into their marriages. But marriage was not the only economic activity of women. London law permitted women to trade in their own right as femmes soles and a number of women, many of them immigrants from the countryside, served as wage
laborers. But London's archives confirm women's chief economic impact was felt in the capital and skill they brought with them to marriages, rather than their profits as independent traders or wage laborers.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Medieval, Feminism, Gender, Womens Studies, British Literature

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

A specialist in medieval English social history, Barbara Hanawalt is Emeritus Professor of History at Ohio State University. . She received her PhD from University of Michigan in 1970, and taught at Indiana University and the University of Minnesota before moving to Ohio State University in 1999. She has served as President of the Medieval Academy of America and President of the Social Science History Association.

Reviews

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Examination of the contributions of women in medieval times and the laws that protected them. I found it interesting that the courts had a realistic view of humankind and created laws so orphans were not given into care of adults who would benefit from the inheritances of the orphaned child. A maternal uncle, or other relatives or non-relatives outside of lines of inheritance were designated. Citizens of London enjoyed 'partible inheritance' that is a daughter inherited equally with her brother. One third of an inheritance went to a testator to be disposed of for the good of the soul of the deceased, one-third went to his children or heirs, and one-third went to his wife as a dower for her life use. Courts regularly became involved when the inheritance of children were in jeopardy such as in one case where a widow remarried a man with a 12 year old son, and the widow and her new husband conspired to marry off the widow's 8 month old daughter to her 12 year step brother so the infant's inheritance from her dead father would pass into the control of her step father. Men tended to marry younger women so when the older husband died, his money went to his wife as her 'dower' and to his children making the widow a very attractive catch. Women amassed quite a fortune in this manner when widowed several times. I enjoy reading about life in historical times and this collection of historical documents, letters, and rulings was fascinating.

[Heather Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hanawalt is looking specifically at women in 14-15th century London -- largely using the lens of legal documents and records -- in terms of how they managed their own wealth. How it came to them, under what circumstances they had control over its disposition, and how they chose to dispose of it. Although the title makes reference to "wives" the discussions cover women of all statuses: unmarried, married, and widowed. The discussion is very detailed and full of personal correspondence and anecdotal examples. One of the major themes is the contrast between the "northern european" pattern where daughters received shares of family wealth equivalent to sons and where widows stood in a strong position with regard to finances, compared to the "mediterranean" pattern where women's access to familial wealth or to marital wealth after a spouse's death were much more constrained. I haven't had a chance to do more than leaf through it briefly at this point, but I expect to mine the chapters deeply when I eventually sit down to use it for my own research projects.

[Jennifer]

I will be writing a paper on this book in a few weeks and will have a more accurate analysis then.

[Autumn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hanawalt is the best.