Posted: March 11th, 2023

Poor Girls in Medieval Italy

Girls in Medieval Italy: the girls that were troubled and not given opportunities 

Topic:
-5 pages (double-spaced)
-include a 1-page ABSTRACT discussing the topics that are going to be discussed and the

Topic:
Girls in Medieval Italy: the girls that were troubled and not given opportunities

– Dowries and poor women not having access to marriage
– Prostitution
– Women running away (due to pregnancies, an unwanted marriage, young love)
– And girls without marriage prospects were more likely to be found in court records as

victims, suspected criminals, or witnesses
– Women in Court Cases: there were many cases of violence against girls, assault, rape, and

homicide

Please use provided sources and only scholarly sources from Medieval Italy

Sumptuary laws
and prostitution in
late Enedieval Italy

James A. Brundage

Although ancient Roman lawmakers had often
adopted statutes designed to curb conspicuous dis-
plays of wealth, sumttuary legislation was uncom-
mon in medieval Europe prior to 1300. Then statu-
tes imposing limits on ostentation and extravagan-
ce, particularly in women’s clothing, suddenly ap-
peared in large numbers. This article analyzes the
principal themes of this legislation, concentrating
particularly on the sumptuary statutes of fifteen
northern Italian towns. The author concludes that
the reappearance of legislative concern with dress
and related matters resected the new prosperity of
the period, as well as new social developments,
including a constriction of the marriage market for
young women, apprehensions about social cohesion
among successful merchants and tradesmen, and a
desire to channel resources into more productive
kinds of investment. In addition, he argues, sump-
tuary statutes mirrored new fashions in jurispru-
dence during the post-Bartolist period and a desire
to employ legislation to affirm the moral aspira-
tions, although not necessaril_y the actual practices,
qf communities.”

Societies from ancient times have used legal
prescriptions about styles of dress and
adornment as mechanisms to maintain so-
cial distance between classes. Dress regula-
tions provided a semiotic code that distin-
guished the favored from the disadvanta-
ged, and thus reinforced the stability of the
social order (Hughes 1986:45-6, 48). The
purple stripe on a Roman senator’s toga si-
multaneously commanded deference and
envy from the lowly, certified to the wearer’s
peers that he was entitled to their fellowship
and camaraderie, and reassured the man in-
side the costume that his privileges would
be respected, regardless of his personal
shortcomings.

Regulation of dress has, in addition, often
served as a vehicle for asserting social poli-
cy. Sumptuary statutes have typically ex-
pressed concern about the moral and social
implications of apparel, usually female ap-
parel. Statutory constraints on the cut and
fabric of women’s dresses, on the height of
their heels, the depth of their decolletage,
or the number of fur cloaks they might keep
in their closets have typically been prefaced
by declarations that these measures would
restrain frivolity, promote thrift, and encou-
rage morality.

The Roman Lex Oppia, adopted in 215
BC during the fervor of the Second Punic
War, was an early experiment in social re-
gulation through control of feminine fash-
ion. When this statute was repealed twen-
ty years later by the Lex Valeria Fundiana,
Cato argued with great urgency that lifting
restrictions on women’s dress would invite
moral decadence and social upheaval.’ Sin-
ce both consequences followed the repeal,
there were those who felt that Cato had
been right. Further legislation to repress lu-

Journal of Mcdicval History 13 (1987) 343-

355

0304.4181/87/$3.50 0 1987, Elscvicr Scicncc Puhlishcrs B.V. (North-Holland) 343

xuries and prohibit lavish displays of wealth
soon followed. The Lex Orchia (181 BC) lim-
ited the number of guests who could be
entertained at banquets; the Lex Funnia ( 161
BC) curtailed the number of courses and
the types of food that could be served at
feasts; and the Lex Aemilia Sumptuaria (115
BC) set additional limits both on entertain-
ment and on extravagance in women’s
wear.2

Early Christians likewise disapproved of
luxury in dress and lifestyle. Jesus had re-
portedly declared that if his hearers wished
to admire fine garments they could find
them in the households of kings, but not, he
implied, among those who accepted his
message (Matt. 11:8). St Paul focused spec-
ifically on female garb. Christian women,
he directed, should dress quietly and mod-
estly, they should not braid their hair, wear
gold jewelry, or flaunt expensive gowns.
Sweet disposition and gentle piety, not
gems, bangles, and flashy dresses, should
be the adornments that holy women
cherished (1 Tim. 2:9-10; cf. 1 Peter 3:3-5;
Isaiah 3: 16-24).

Both Roman lawyers and Christian
moralists expressed concern about the re-
lationship between luxury, lust, and the so-
cial order. The Didascalia warned married
Christians not to try to make themselves at-
tractive to anyone other than their lawful
mates, lest they stimulate carnal desires and
thus provoke sinful thoughts and actions.
The Church Fathers sternly admonished
women not to imitate the provocative clo-
thing of harlots, or to adorn themselves ex-
travagantly in ways that might entice men
other than than their husbands to flirt with
them (Funk 1905a:1.3.1-9, 17-18).

Among the jurists, Ulpian (around 160-

228) assumed that a woman’s clothes
should reflect her social and moral status
and the sumptuary laws of the Christian
emperors reiterated this message. There
was a clear consensus that styles of dress
required legal regulation in order to main-
tain the distance between social classes
(Codex Theodosianus 1905:10.21.1-2, 4;
14.10.1-4). A matron who dressed like a
tart could expect to be treated like one. A
man who propositioned a lady of rank, how-
ever, put himself at risk because he might
be liable to her husband on an action for
insult, even if the woman’s clothing indi-
cated that her morals were loose and her
favors available.3 By the time of St Jerome
(around 347-4 19/20) the connection be-
tween prostitution and provocative dress
had become a commonplace both in Roman
law and Christian moral discourse.4
Women were often enticed into a life of
prostitution, the Emperor Justinian de-
clared, by promises of daring dresses and
flashy shoes (Schoell and Kroll 1895: Nov.
14 pr.; cf. Procopius 1940:1.9.2-3).

Despite all this, however, medieval law
prior to the thirteenth century paid scant
heed to fashion, dress, or adornment. What
little attention the canons gave to these mat-
ters focused mainly on the attire of the
clergy, not on female fashions.5 Only one
canon in the Decretum of Gratian (around
1140) dealt with feminine adornment, and
that one was more concerned with the mor-
ality of makeup than with luxury in clothing
(Friedberg 1879: D. 5 de cons. c. 38).

Theologians and moralists prior to the
end of the thirteenth century seemed more
concerned with costume than were the
lawyers and legislators of the period. St
Thomas Aquinas (1224-74), to cite just one

344

example, scrutinized closely the moral im-
plications of luxury in women’s dress. Inor-
dinate attention to and expenditure on
lavish clothing, he cautioned, might under
some circumstances be sinful. A married
woman, according to Aquinas, could legiti-
mately lavish attention onher appearance
only so long as her goal was to make herself
attractive to her husband and keep him in-
terested in her. A single woman who had no
desire to marry should therefore dress
plainly, lest she provoke men to sinful
thoughts and deeds. A woman who pur-
posefully dressed in ways calculated to
arouse men’s lust sinned mortally; if she
wore a provocative frock simply out of
frivolity (ex quadam levitate), however, she
committed only a venial sin (Busa 1980: ST
2-2 q. 169 a. 2 concl.).

Aquinas left unresolved the moral status
of an unmarried woman who dressed pro-
vocatively in order to attract suitors. But he
did consider the moral perils of the garment
trade. Tailors and dressmakers did not sin,
according to Thomas’ analysis, by creating
luxurious or attractive fashions, since pur-
chasers could employ their stylish dresses
and other adornments either for permissible
or impermissible purposes. The fashion de-
signer might sin, however, by creating
frivolous or novel styles (aliqua superjlua et
curiosa) for the display of feminine charms
(Busa 1980: ST 2-2 q. 169 a. 2 ad 4).
Makeup posed special moral problems,
Aquinas thought, since its use could involve
deceit. He distinguished between wearing
cosmetics in order to feign a beauty that
God had not bestowed and using makeup
in order to hide the strain of illness or the
pallor of exhaustion. Again, intention was
the key to morality. Women who used

makeup in order to deceive onlookers into
thinking them more beautiful than God had
made them sinned thereby, especially if
they were motivated by lascivious desire or
contempt of their creator. But women who
employed the cosmetic arts simply to hide
the ravages of time, care, or illness commit-
ted no sin (Busa 1980: ST 2-2 q. 169 a. 2
ad 2).

It is a major step, however, to pass from
moral counsels about the sinfulness of low-
cut dresses and seductive makeup to forbid-
ding these things under penalty of law.
Medieval Europeans began to take that step
during the second half of the thirteenth cen-
tury, and continued to impose legal re-
straints on fashion and adornment for cen-
turies thereafter. Why did policy shift in this
way at this time?

One possibility is that until the end of the
thirteenth century there was not a great
deal of luxury for lawmakers to worry
about. Writers such as Dante and Giovanni
Villani certainly gave the impression that
extravagance in dress was something novel
around the beginning of the fourteenth cen-
tury. But that impression was not altogether
accurate. The well-to-do of earlier genera-
tions had not always been modest in their
expenditures on clothing and adornment.
Yet there is little doubt that by the late thir-
teenth century more Europeans possessed
surplus wealth than had done so a century
earlier. In consequence conspicuous dis-
plays of wealth became far more numerous
in the closing decades of the thirteenth and
the opening decades of the fourteenth cen-
turies than previously (Kantorowicz
1970:357). The flourishing of sumptuary
laws in part reflected greater prosperity.

The jurisdictional, geographical, and

345

chronological distribution of sumptuary
laws tells us something further about the
reasons behind the laws themselves. First,
the proliferation of sumptuary legislation
occurred mainly in municipal statutes.
Ecclesiastical legislation on the subject re-
mained meager and laws about adornment
were a marginal concern for canonists.
Royal law-makers, too, showed slight in-
terest in these matters; kings and parlia-
ments paid little heed to regulating
women’s dress. Overwhelmingly it was city
law-makers who tried to repress extravag-
ant fashions. This suggests that sumptuary
legislation reflected the concerns of urban
dwellers, particularly. merchants, profes-
sionals, artisans, and craftsmen.

Second, it is notable that Mediterranean
cities produced most of the sumptuary laws
of this period. Urban centers in northern
and central Europe adopted some legisla-
tion about attire, to be sure. In 1351-52, for
example, the city of London forbade women
of bad moral character to wear furs or to
line their cloaks with silk (Sharpe
1904:241), while Parisian authorities at
about the same time were busily prescribing
the types of garments that prostitutes might
wear (Geremek 1976:246-7). Town au-
thorities in German-speaking lands did
likewise. As early as 1291 Hamburg’s laws
regulated the kinds of clothing that its
daughters of joy might sport (Schonfeldt
1897:91, 103-4), while other German towns
attempted to differentiate whores from hon-
est women by color codes. In Leipzig and
Vienna. ladies of easy virtue wore yellow, in
Zurich red was prescribed, while in Augs-
burg and many other cities loose women
wore green:

In Griin, in Griin, in lauter Griin
will ich mich frijlich kleiden,
da wird mein liebes Liebschen sich
wohl nimmer von mir scheiden.

(Jung n.d: 219)

Travelling ladies obviously needed to select
their wardrobes with care and to be mindful
of local regulations if they wished to avoid
embarrassing confrontations.

But statutory regulation of women’s dress
flourished most profusely in Mediterranean
Europe. As early as 1243 the municipal sta-
tutes of Avignon directed officials to restrain
prostitutes from wearing mantles in public,
while the Marseilles ordinances of about the
same period listed a variety of distinctive
garments that only respectable women
could wear.6 Smaller towns followed suit.
We find dress codes that specifically forbade
harlots to wear certain kinds of attire at
Nimes in 1

350

and 1353, at Piolenc in the
Venaissin in 1406, at Barbentane in 1448,
and at Aubignan and Loriolin 1487 (LePil-
leur 1908:5, 10, 32-3, 135-6). Meanwhile
Perpignan adopted a different approach.
There a sumptuary law of 1308 simply
exempted prostitutes from observing the
regulations imposed on the dress worn by
respectable women in the community. This
created a presumption that a woman who
failed to conform to the statutory prescrip-
tions was a whore, an approach that pre-
sumably made compliance with the statute
easy to secure (Vidal 1897:213-14, 217 n. 1;
Otis 1985:141 n. 14).

Within Mediterranean Europe
sumptuary laws were especially abundant
in Italian towns perhaps as Burckhardt
suggested because dress was taken more
seriously in Italy than elsewhere in this
period (Burckhardt 1945:224). This paper

346

will concentrate on Italian sumptuary sta-
‘tutes from fifteen cities in the northern half
of the peninsula: Ancona, Bergamo, Cre-
mona, Florence, Macerata, Milan, Orvieto,
Pistoia, Perugia, Reggio Emilia, Sarzana,
Siena, Todi, and Venice. Although this list
is no random sample, it does represent a
cross-section of northern Italian towns –
some are large, some small, some medium-
sized; some ancient, others more recent;
some rich and famous, others modest and
obscure. The chronological distribution of
their sumptuary statutes also ranges across
a wide span, from the mid-thirteenth cen-
tury to the beginning of the sixteenth, but
more than three-quarters of them date from
between 1306 and 1490 (see Table 1).7

The rationale advanced to justify
sumptuary legislation was varied. St Ber-
nardino of Siena ( 1380-l 444) complained
that women paid far too much attention to
their clothes and changed them too fre-
quently. This, he declared, was a species of
vainglory and offensive to God (Bernardino
1948:2:82-97; Hughes 1983:82-4). The
Franciscan preacher and moralist, Orpheus
de Cancellariis (d. 1503), also stressed the
moral and theological basis for sumptuary
statutes, alleging that luxury in clothing
would provoke God’s wrath, that fancy
dress, jewelry, and makeup manifested de-
praved or evil intentions stemming from
lust or vanity, and that extravagant displays
of wealth created public scandal. Orpheus
was particularly offended by the noxious
custom of leaving the shoulders bare; even
worse, he added, in some regions women
bare their breasts as well (Kantorowicz and
Denholm-Young 1933:355; Dante 1965:
Purgatorio 23.98100; Hughes 1983:82-8).
Other writers justified sumptuary laws on

economic grounds, arguing that lavish ex-
penditures on dress and rivalries over fash-
ions would impoverish individuals, drain
community resources and drive men into
the clutches of usurers (Reggio Emilia
1582:7.1 at 185r; Bistort 1912:329; Verga
1898:9; Newett 1902:252-3; Pinetti
1917:26-28; Hughes 1983:76-g).

Virtually all of these statutes were con-
cerned primarily with women’s dress and
adornment. Some ordinances also sought to
restrain spending on banquets, wedding
parties, and other celebrations (e.g. a Ven-
etian law of 1299, Bistort 1912:98-104, 323-
5; a Sienese statute of 1343, Casanova
1901:66-70; a Milan statute of 1396, Verga
1898:37; and a Bergamo statute of 1491,
Pinetti 19 17:63-5). Sumptuary laws typi-
cally detailed the fabrics, furs, and colors
that women were forbidden to wear in their
gowns (Perugia 1523:1.27; Sarzana
1965:2.21; Bistort 1912:121-42; Casanova
1901:62; Newett 1902:262, 275-6). In addi-
tion lawmakers often sought either to ban
or else to restrict sharply the use of gold,
silver, pearls, and gemstones in dress orna-
ments. Buttons also received great attention
in these laws, which specified their num-
bers, size, and materials in minute detail
(e.g. Orvieto 1581:5.29; Todi 1549:3.232;
Verga 1898:9; Bistort 1912: 172-89; Pinetti
19 17: 14; Kantorowicz and Denholm-Young
1933:358-g). A few statutes limited both the
amount and the cost of the cloth used in a
single gown or other garment (Perugia
1523:1.27; Orvieto 1581:5.29). Venice fixed
the prices that might be charged for the ren-
tal of necklaces and rings (Newett
1902:251). A Florentine statute of 1290, a
Sienese statute of 1413, and a Perugian sta-
tute of 1445 even required women to reg-

347

Table 1. Italian sumptuary statutes to 1562

Date City References

1157 Genoa
1249 Florence
1266 Perugia
1279 Florence
1287 Ferrara
1299 Venice

1306 Venice
1317 Florence
1318 Perugia
1318 Florence
1322 Florence

1324 Florence
1330 Florence
1330 Sarzana
1331 Bergamo
1332 Pistoia
1334 Venice
1343 Siena
1356 Venice
1360 Venice
1366 Perugia
1387 Cremona
1396 Milan
1400 Perugia
1400 Venice
around 1400 Orvieto
1402 Perugia
1403 Venice
1416 Perugia
1421 Milan
1421 Venice
1426127 Siena
1430 Venice
1433 Siena
1437 Venice
1443 Venice
1445 Perugia
1455 Venice
1459 Venice
1460 Perugia
1460 Siena
1460 Venice
1472 Perugia
1472 Venice
1475 Perugia
1476 Venice

Hughes 1983:72-3
Kantorowicz 1970:347
Fabretti 1888: 155-9
Davidsohn 1896:4/3:345-6
Ferrara 1955:6.70-81
Kantorowicz 1970:359;
Newett 1902:61-2;
Bistort 1912:323-g
Kantorowicz 1970:359
Kantorowicz 1970:257-8
Fabretti 1888: 164-5
Kantorowicz 1970:357-8
Kantorowicz 1970:357-8;
Davidsohn 1896:3/4:346-8
Kantorowicz 1970:359
Kantorowicz 1970:359
Sarzana 1965:2.21
Pinetti 1917:14
Ciampi 1815:xi-xvi
Bistort 1912:329-52
Casanova 1901:52-72
Newett 1902:255
Newett 1902:268-70
Fabretti 1888:168-72
Cremona 1578:~. 114
Kantorowicz 1970:358-g
Perugia 1523:1.27
Newett 1902:252-3,275-76
Orvieto 1581:5.29
Fabretti 1888: 177-9
Newett 1902:275-6
Fabretti 1888: 180-3
Milan 1512:2:147r
Venice 1870:35-6
Casanova 1901:80-2
Newett 1902:273-l
Casanova 1901:82-6
Newett 1902:259
Newett 1902:268, 275-6
Fabretti 1888: 188-9
Newett 1902:275-6
Newett 1902:246,277
Fabretti 1888: 192-7
Casanova 1901:89-93
Newett 1902:250
Fabretti 1888:203A
Newett 1902:275-6
Fabretti 1888:205-7
Kantorowicz 1970:359;
Bistort 1912:352-63

348

Table 1. (Continzced)

Date City References

1483 Venice
1489 Venice
1491 Bergamo

around 1500 Ancona
1506 Perugia
1508 Perugia
1529 Perugia
1536 Perugia
1547 Macerata
before 1549 Todi
around 1550 Reggio Emilia
1562 Venice

ister their dresses with municipal au-
thorities (Fabretti 1888:188-g; Casanova
190 1: 72-4; Kantorowicz and Denholm-
Young 1933:358-g).

The cut of dresses also attracted legisla-
tive attention: some statutes limited the
length of trains or forbade them completely,
and a few defined the limits of decency by
regulating the depth of decolletage (Sarzana
1965:2.21; Orvieto 1581:5.29; Todi
1549:3.232; Casanova 1901162-3; Kan-
torowicz and Denholm-Young 1933:358-g).
An Orvieto statute, for example, specified
that the neckline of a woman’s dress must
not descend more than two fingers’ breadth
below the suprasternal notch on the chest,
and the same distance in back. A type of
bodice known as the cipriana offended Vene-
tian legislators, since the garment was cut
so loosely that the breasts could be glimpsed
through openings known as “Hell’s Win-
dows”. A statute required Venetian women
to lace up the offending aperture, but did
not forbid them to wear these garments
(Bistort 1912:167-8; Verga 1898:22;

Bistort 1912:363-7
Bistort 19 12:368-73
Bergamo 1490: 10.48;
Pinetti 1917:57-66
Ancona 1566:3.55
Fabretti 1888:215-18
Fabrctti 1888:219-23
Fabretti 1888:225-g
Fabretti 1888:229-32
Macerata 1879:25-32
Todi 1549:3.232
Reggio Emilia 1582:7.1
Newett 1902:246;
Bistort 1912:373-414

Hughes 1983:82-4). Todi’s lawmakers, in
contrast, thought that the bustline of dres-
ses worn by females age twelve and older
“is and ought to be rounded, so that its con-
tours may correspond and conform to the
chest of the woman” (Orvieto 1581:5.29;
Todi 1549:3.232). The Maggior Consiglio
of Bergamo, however, was more concerned
about the other end of garments and for-
bade the wearing of dresses that exposed
the pudenda (Pinetti 19 17:63).

Elsewhere statutes forbade women to
wear strands of pearls or gold and silver
diadems and costly brooches. Statutes
likewise set limits on the price that might
be paid for women’s belts and purses and
regulated the number of rings that they
might wear. The unusually detailed Floren-
tine statute of 1322 forbade the wearing. of
dresses decorated with pictures of trees,
flowers, or birds, and limited women to the
possession of no more than four street dres-
ses at a time (Kantorowicz and Denholm-
Young 1933:347-59; Newett 1902:258-g,
262, 268-70; Casanova 1901:62). A 1430

349

statute at Venice also set stringent limits on
the height of the heels and platforms of
women’s shoes, but at Siena only prostitutes
were permitted to wear flat shoes or slippers
in public (Newett 1902:273-4; Bistort
1912:168-71; Casanova 1901:61; Verga
1898:25).

Most of these sumptuary laws prescribed
fines for women who contravened their pro-
visions, while some also made husbands
and fathers liable to punishment. A few re-
quired tailors and dressmakers to take oaths
that they would not produce garments that
failed to observe statutory limits and levied
fines on those who violated the undertaking
(Ciampi 1815:xi-xvi;. Perugia 1523:1.27;
Sarzana 1965:2.21; Todi 1549:3.232; Or-
vieto 1581:5.29; Bistort 1912:328; Kan-
torowicz and Denholm-Young 1933:357-g).
But statute makers found it difficult to keep
up with changes in style. An amendment to
Perugia’s sumptuary law noted despair-
ingly: “We see new garments and varieties
of adornment appearing from one five-year
period to the next, as people discard old
styles and put on new ones” (Perugia
1523:1.27).

Women’s clothing, although it attracted
the most attention from lawmakers, was not
the only subject regulated by sumptuary
enactments. Several cities imposed limits on
celebratory feasts, especially weddings. A
series of provisions in the Ferrara statutes
of 1287, for example, specified the
maximum number of men allowed in wed-
ding parties, the number of attendants at
nuptial rites in churches, the value of wed-
ding presents, and the length and lavishness
of the wedding banquet (Montorsi
1955:399-400; cf. Newett 1902:255, 261-2,
268-70; Casanova 1901:74-7). The Vene-

tians also banned parties and feasts that ex-
tended late into the evening hours (Bistort
1912:205-12; Newett 1902:255).

Todi was the only city in my sample that
devoted a special statute exclusively to the
regulation of men’s tailoring. The male
dress code at Todi specified the maximum
size of men’s hoods and forbade the use of
gold or silver cloth or ornaments on men’s
outer garments. It is notable that the lines
for infractions of the male sumptuary law at
Todi were considerably heavier than those
for violations of the laws on women’s dress
(Todi 1549:3.233). Elsewhere, however,
men’s fashions were rarely much restricted.
Statutory references to gentlemen’s apparel
appear only occasionally as incidental notes
in enactments that dealt primarily with
female adornment (e.g. at Milan in 1396;
Verga 1898: 10). Italian townsmen, appar-
ently, could usually dress as elaborately and
lavishly as they pleased.

Sumptuary laws were notoriously dif-
ficult to enforce since offenders could easily
evade the law’s prescriptions by coining
names for the offending frills different from
the ones specified in the statutes. In conse-
quence, it was frequently necessary to revise
and rewrite these statutes (Sacchetti 1860:
no. 137, 1:325-7; Kantorowicz and Den-
holm-Young 1933:360-l; Hughes
1983:69-70 and 1986:47). Indeed, the Mag-
gior Consiglio at Venice in 1339 repealed
the city’s sumptuary law of 1334 on the
grounds that it was useless (Hughes
1983: 70) . Later generations of Venetians,
however, attacked the problem with re-
newed vigor and created a special court, the
Proueditori alle pompe, to deal with violations
of the Republic’s re-enacted sumptuary
laws. The court as originally constituted in

350

1472 had three judges, but in 1562 the press
of business made it advisable to add two
Sporaproueditori to the panel. Venetian auth-
orities also encouraged anonymous de-
nunciations of alleged violators of the
sumptuary statutes (Bistort 1912:48-60,
361-3; Newett 1902:245-6; Kantorowicz
and Denholm-Young 1933:359). Siena
likewise had a special judge to deal with
violations of the city’s sumptuary laws
(Casanova 190 1:45-7).

Enforcement was complicated by streams
of petitions for exemption from the applica-
tion of sumptuary laws. A few towns, such
as For-h and Florence, provided in their sta-
tutes that no exception would be allowed,
while others, such as Bergamo, Milan, Pis-
toia, and Reggio Emilia, granted automatic
exemptions to women of high rank. The
wives and daughters of knights, noblemen,
doctors of law, and physicians were most
often exempted (Reggio Emilia 1582:7.1;
Ciampi 1815:2, 5; Bistort 1912:328; Pinetti
1917:58; Kantorowicz and Denholm-Young
1933:358-g).

Some earlier studies of sumptuary legisla-
tion asserted that these laws were blind to
class differences and affected everyone alike.
But I would argue on the contrary that the
dress codes of late medieval Italian towns
not only reflected class differences but
sought to reinforce them (Kantorowicz and
Denholm-Young 1933:359; Newett
1902:249). In the first place, these statutes
only affected, and only could affect, those
social groups who had sufficient surplus
cash or credit to lavish money on unproduc-
tive display. To say that the sumptuary
laws applied to all classes alike is much the
same as saying that the rich as well as the
poor are allowed to sleep under the bridges.

The washerwoman was forbidden just as
much as the banker’s wife to use gold but-
tons on her silk dresses or to have more than
four ermine .coats at the same time. This
may be true, but what does it signify?
Sumptuary legislation was aimed at the
wealthy, and specifically at wealthy mer-
chants and tradesmen. Knights, nobles, and
prosperous professionals were often exemp-
ted en bloc from the statutory provisions.8
The statutes could realistically apply only
to those who prospered from commerce,
manufacturing, trade, and the professions –
including prostitution.

Confirmation of this view is furnished by
one type of sumptuary statute that has
hitherto not been much dealt with in the
literature, namely laws aimed at prosperous
whores and the concubines of men of sub-
stance. Many Italian cities required women
of easy virtue to wear distinctive garb. At
Milan, for example, harlots were to sport
a black fustian mantle of prescribed dimen-
sions whenever they ventured out of the
public brothel (Milan 1512:2:146v-147r;
Verga 1898:68-70). Venice prescribed a
yellow neckband vaziolum zalum circa col-
urn), while Cremona required a white cloak
(clamydem de pignolato albo) and Bergamo a
saffron-colored fustian scarf (menteletum crocei
coloris et fustiani) (Venice 1870:35-6; Cre-
mona 1578: 114; Bergamo 1490: 10.48;
Casanova 1901:59, 71-2; Hughes 1983:92-
3). Other Italian cities followed the example
of Perpignan and exempted prostitutes from
the operation of the general sumptuary
laws. Presumably they expected not only
that this would encourage observance and
but also that harlots themselves would see
to it that they stood out in a crowd, al-
though no statute put it quite that way.g

351

The notaries who drafted these enactments
preferred to speak in somber and judgmen-
tal terms. An Ancona statute, for example,
declared:”
NO public prostitute residing in the public stews of
the city of Ancona and notoriously making money
with her body shall be understood to be meant or
included within the terms of the next preceding sta-
tute dealing with women’s adornments . . . since be-
cause of the squalor of their lives [prostitutes] are not
bound by the law’s restraints.

At Bergamo, incidentally, pimps were also
required to wear a distinctive costume.
Their uniform featured a red hood to which
a bell was affixed “so that it can been seen
and heard” (Bergamo 1490:10.49).

Sumptuary laws that required prostitutes
to dress distinctively received specific sup-
port from canon law. Pope Clement III
(1187-91) had ruled at the end of the
twelfth century that harlots should dress
differently from honest women (Friedberg
1879:X5.39.25). At the Fourth Lateran
Council (12 15) Pope Innocent III proposed
that Jews and Saracens should also be re-
quired to wear special insignia when they
appeared in public. The Council adopted
this measure in a canon that explicitly ad-
vanced as its rationale the fear that unless
Jews and Saracens were visibly distin-
guished from Christians they might have
sex with Christian women (Garcia
1981:107-S, c. 68; Friedberg 1879:X
5.6.15). It was inevitable that the two ca-
nons should be linked together and thir-
teenth-century canonistic glosses and com-
mentaries soon did so (e.g. Joannes
Teutonicus and Vincentius Hispanus in
Garcia 1981:267-68, 378-9 to c. 68 v. distin-
guit diuersitas; Hostiensis 1581:X 5.6.15 no.
4; and Bernard of Parma 1605:X 5.6.15 v.
distinguit). It seems likely that municipal au-

thorities, or their legal advisers, considered
that these canons legitimized their own de-
tailed dress codes for prostitutes (Hughes
1986:29-30, 46-7).

The late medieval sumptuary legislation
surveyed here suggests six conclusions.
First, the content of these laws indicates
that the governing bodies of north Italian
towns in the later middle ages saw control
of dress and other forms of conspicuous con-
sumption as a mechanism to make life
easier for the male heads of wealthy mer-
chant families. Eliminating, or at least in-
hibiting, competition over the adornment of
the wives and daughters of the merchant
classes allowed entrepreneurs to conserve
their resources for productive uses.
Sumptuary laws also symbolically affirmed
parity among families within the group.
Second, this type of legislation seems to
have been especially common in middle-
and large-sized towns, where wealthy mer-
chants and tradespeople were most apt to
be found. Third, upward of two-thirds of
the sumptuary statutes surveyed here date
from the years after 1348. This suggests that
sumptuary statutes may have reflected ap-
prehensions about social cohesion that be-
came more acute among successful mer-
chants and tradesmen after the Black Death
than they had been before. Fourth, the ap-
pearance of sumptuary statutes in consider-
able numbers coincides fairly closely with a
period when the marriage market had
begun to turn against the interests ofwomen
and, in consequence, the age of females at
first marriage began to decline. This
suggests that one function of sumptuary
legislation may well have been to restrain
competition between the families of young
women of marriageable age.”

352

Fifth, the striking similarities between
late medieval sumptuary enactments and
the ancient Roman statutes that sought to
curb extravagance and ostentation in dress
suggest that the legal elite in fourteenth-
an,d fifteenth-century Italian towns may
have consciously imitated the earlier pre-
scriptions. If one accepts Alan Watson’s ar-
gument that the culture of lawyers plays a
central role in the development of legal sys-
tems, it seems likely that the appearance of
elaborate sumptuary legislation in this
period may also have reflected develop-
ments in jurisprudence among the succes-
sors of Bartolus (Watson 198513: 115-l 9).

Sixth, and last, although some towns
made serious efforts to enforce their
sumptuary laws, implementation must have
been difficult and costly and it cannot often
have been effective (Kantorowicz and De-
nholm-Young 1933:359-61; Hughes
1983:69-70 and 1986:47). Enforcement,
however, may not have been the primary
goal of legislators. Late medieval
sumptuary laws resemble modern legisla-
tion on sex and gambling. Statutes banning
fornication, adultery, pornography, pros-
titution, off-track betting, numbers games,
and slot machines have rarely been enforced
with rigor for very long. Medieval
sumptuary legislation, like these modern
statutes, sought at least as much to al&-m
values as to modify behavior. Sumptuary
laws, like sex and gambling laws, proclaim
our collective devotion to moral values by
defining immoral behavior as a crime. It
need not follow as a consequence, however,
that we will therefore change our habits and
forego our pleasures by enforcing these bans
vigorously. l2 Sumptuary laws allowed
urban authorities to visit exemplary punish-

ment from time to time on blatant trans-
gressors of communal morality. Perhaps
episodic pursuit of offenders may have
added a flavor of adventure to dressing up,
while at the same time it reassured mem-
bers of the bourgeois upper classes that they
shared a common devotion to morality.

Notes
* A shorter version of this paper was presented
at the Twenty-first International Congress of
Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University on
9 May 1986. I am grateful to the Newberry Library
and the National Endowment for the Humanities for
the fellowship that enabled me to complete the larger
research project on medieval sex law from which this
work draws. I also wish to thank Professors Stanley
Chojnacki, Diane Owen Hughes, John F. McGovern,
and Donald Queller for many helpful suggestions.
I Livy 1919:34.1 .l-34, 8.3. Unless otherwise
noted, references to classical Greek and Latin texts
are to the numbered divisions of the editions in the
Loeb Classical Library. Likewise, references to legal
texts are to the numbered divisions in the editions
cited.
2 Kiibler 1894:901-8.
3 Ulpian, Ad edictum 77 = Dig. 47.10.15.15, in
Mommsen 1872 and Watson 1985a. At least this is
what the fragment seems to mean, but the text is
enigmatic and may well be corrupt; Guarino
1974: 126-9.
4 For example Jerome, Epist. 54.7 Ad Furiam, in
MPL 22:553. For a discussion, with numerous refer-
ences, of the types of dress, makeup, and perfume
favored by Roman prostitutes see Herter 1960:89-94.
5 On clerical dress see the Decretum Grutiani D. 41
c. 5, 8 and C. 21 q. 4 throughout, in Friedberg 1879.
The Fourth Lateran Council (12 15) c. 16 (incorpo-
rated in the Liber extra at X 3.1.15) laid down further
ipecific guidelines on this subject; Garcia 1981:64-5.

Le Pilleur 1908:2. The list of articles of clothing
that Avignon’s prostitutes were forbidden to wear was
greatly expanded in statutes of 1372 and 1458; LePil-
leur 1908:4, 11-12. For the text of the Marseille sta-
tute see Mireur 1882:365-6.
7 Genoa apparently included a sumptuary provi-
sion in its first law code, the Breve della campagna, in
1157; but omitted that section from the reissue of
1161; Hughes 1983:72-3.

353

8 Hughes 1983:74 argues that sumptuary legisla-
tion was primarily designed to curb ostentation by
the aristocracy, but the frequency with which nobles
were exempted from the regulations seems to under-
cut this contention.
9 Lecoy de La Marche 1886:414-15 quotes a vivid
thirteenth-century description of saucily clad Parisian
strumpets adorned with bouncing curls, gold jewelry,
and strings of pearls from a sermon in B.N. lat. 16498.
See also Jacques de Vitry 197282-3 and Hughes
1986:25-6, 51-4. An exemplum much used in sermons
described a prostitute ridiculing the simple un-
adorned dresses of respectable women (Tubach
1969:194, no. 2453).
10 Ancona 1566:3.55. Statutum et ordinatum est,
quod nulla publica meretrix stans in prostribulis pub-
licis civitatis Anconae & notorie quaestum sui cor-
poris faciens, includatur vel comprehensa intelligatur
proxime praecedenti statuto loquente de ornamentis
mulierum, net in aliquibus aliis statutis, loquentibus
de ornamentis & indumentis aliquibus, cum vilitas
vitae illarum non sint ipsas legum laqueis innodari.
The last clause is an allusion to Cod. 9.9.28(29), in
Kruger 1877; cf. Hostiensis 1581:X. 3.30.23 no. 3 and
4.1.20 no. 5.
II On the marriage market and related issues see
especially Herlihy 1985:100-10.
12 Slovenko 1967; Joplin 1970. The late medieval
sumptuary laws, like many modern sex and gambling
laws, in other words, were attempts to legislate what
Lon Fuller calls “the morality of aspiration” (Fuller
1969:5-g).

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355

Disputes and disparity: women in court in
medieval southern Italy
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Disputes and Disparity: Women in Court
in Medieval Southern Italy’

Patricia Skinner
University of Southampton

The backbone of many localized medieval studies is the evidence
furnished by charters – records of land transactions – surviving from
the area under scrutiny. The survival of charter evidence is itself
patchy: much more material survives from Italy than from France or
England up to 1300, for example, and the copious archives of
Catalonia and north-western Spain are also providing a rich seam of
information for medieval historians to mine.

Charter collections frequently include records of court cases before
local officials, and these can be extremely illuminating when
examining the lives and status of women in a medieval community.
Of particular value is their evidence for women’s voices, protesting
against a given situation.

This paper will examine several important questions. Firstly, what
access did women have to courts and under what circumstances might
they bring a case? When they reached the court, did their tactics show
any variation from men’s? And fmally, how successful were women in
winning their cases when compared with men at court? In addition,

I

shall consider whether court case records are a reliable source of
evidence for women’s lives in general, or if a woman in court was in
fact an exceptional occurrence.

In southern Italy, the survival of much documentation from the
ninth to twelfth centuries allows us to examine these issues in some
detail, but the area needs to be set in a wider European context. The
problems raised here are methodological as well as empirical. What do
court case records really tell us? Can we assess women’s level of
access to court, or detect gender-specific reasons for their cases? And do
disputes have a function beyond senling a question of property?

It is a popular theme of medieval historiography to state that
women in most medieval societies had very little public role to play.
By public, the exercise of some administrative office is usually meant,
but the definition might extend further, depending on the location, to

86 Patricia Skinner

cover any kind of activity that expected the woman, rather than her
male relatives, to take responsibility for her !ctions outside the
house.2

I

Although disputes and their settlement in /Joe middle ages have
already received a certain amount of attention from historians,3 this
has not always taken account of possible gender differences in the
procedures described’ However, certain general comments can be made
which are equally applicable to both sexes at court.

Firstly, it is clear that recording of cases before courts was patchy.
It is not the purpose here to enter into a discussion of why court cases
were recorded at all, but the record was often an expression of the
political power of the person presiding, rather than for the benefit of
the individual litigants.s Where recording did take hold it was almost
immediately followed by the development of formulaic practices and
documents. Set procedures began to be followed in the pursuit of a
case, so that the court hearing itself became more of a ritual episode in
a process of disputing, rather than the be-all and end-all. The actual
facts of the case were then packaged to fit a certain notarial frame. This
happened, for example, in northern Italy by the tenth century, where
the placitum featured almost uniform phrases and structure6

Many, but not all, of the records that we have derive from a
winner’s point of view. The victor in court kept the document for
future reference, and the loser’s argument was not always fully
recorded.’ This itself can skew the balance of records in favour of those
individuals or institutions that actively preserved their documents,
with the inevitable result, for the middle ages at least, that many
churches and monasteries appear to have been regular and successful
participants in court cases.

Furthermore, as Ross Balzaretti has recently pointed out,
monasteries like Sant’ Ambrogio at Milan were prepared to create and
alter records to suit their case in a dispute, and succeeded in winning as
a result. 8 This is not to say that documents achieved a uniform
authority across the whole of Italy. The majority of court cases in
both Gaeta and Naples in the South were still settled by oaths in the
tenth century, sometimes in the face of documentary evidence which
was rejected9

Returning to the issue of the court appearance as simply a part of
the dispute, we then have to come to terms with the fact that much
more of the dispute may have been oral; that there may have been
many more factors at work before the case arrived in the documented

Disputes and Disparity 87

coun; and that the dispute may bave rumbled on, or even escalated,
after the parties had said their piece before the local judge or dignitary.

Direct evidence of this can be found among the documents from
southern Italy. A dispute between the bishop of Gaeta and two men,
beard by the rulers of that city in 867 and decided in the men’s favour,
flared up again a generation later, with a new bisbop and the men’s
sons, and once more the bisbop 10st. 1O In 1098 the case of Genesius
of Stilo in Calabria was beard after he had, he said, made many
complaints against the defendants, the monks of St Jobn Theristes.
His frustration is apparent: ‘year after year’, he said, the monks had
made presents to the authoritiesll Similarly, in Bari in 1155, the
abbot of a local monastery stated that he had already made a complaint
about boundary transgressions by Richard Turgisio and Sivitia his
wife. 12 When a cenain Ylaria of Serracapriola faced a claim against her
landholding in 1183, she replied through her advocate that she had
already proven that the land was hers at the coun of the countess of
Molise. Although she does not say so specifically, the likelihood is
that she had obtained a document there, and could wave it at her
opponent. It may also be significant that this case was brought before
a local judge, who would have acknowledged the higher authority of
the countess’ coun. Thus the plaintiff dropped his case.l3 But there
was no guarantee that this was the last round in the battle.

If disputes had a history before they are recorded in court, then many
may have been settled without ever having arrived before a judge. A
more satisfactory outcome than winners and losers might have been a
compromise settlement, where both parties were appeased in some
way and no honour was lost on either side. Records of such
compromises at coun survive in some numbers. The ‘advice of friends’
was sometimes sufficient to persuade a litigant to drop a case. l4

Although we must be careful of reading too much into an absence of
documents, it is certainly the case that no record exists of a
compromise having broken down, in contrast to the breakdown of
previous decisions in favour of one side or the other.

As well as this, we must consider whether the coun appearance had
anything to do with disputing at all. Huguette Taviani-Carozzi has
demonstrated a huge rise in the number of documented coun cases
before local judges in Salerno when that city underwent a change of
regime: people here were confirming propeny that they had held under
the previous rulerIS To take this a step funber, a dispute might be
deliberately provoked in order to have propeny ownership recorded in a

88 Patricia Skinner

document. After the German emperor Henry VI’s assumption of power
in southern Italy in 1196, the archbishop of Brindisi was able to
obtain a judgement from his chancellor against a certain Andoysa, of
whom we shall hear more. 16

Other occasions could arise when such confirmation was necessary.
In 1199, Asconias the wine-seller successfully represented his wife and
her sister at court in Monopoli when they claimed an inheritance from
one deceased John. Here the land was not in dispute, but the women’s
claim to it had to be validated because documents proving John’s
ownership of the land were missing. Only the court, it seems, had the
authority to order that the local notary’s records be examined and a
copy madel7

With these general points in mind, what is the value of southern
Italian court case records as evidence for women’s lives? Of the 240
cases I have examined, only 27.involve women acting alone in defence
or pursuance of their case. Of these 16 won and 7 lost, the outcome
being unclear in the remainder (see table I), So we have two telling
figures: a very small minority of actors was women, but when they
came to court they more often than not WOn.

First, it is necessary to explain why such a low number appeared.
Did more women settle out of court, whilst men preferred the thrill of
a legal battIe? Or were women actively discouraged from attending
court?

In medieval southern Italy, which was until 1130 made up of
several political jurisdictions, two different traditions of law co­
existed, RomanlByzantine and Germartic. These had a direct influence
On the capacity of women to organize their own affairs. In the
Byzantine areas, there seems to have been little restriction on women
managing their property, but in the Germanic Lombard districts,
women were held to be incapable of any legal action (including

land

transactions, for example) without the intervention and permission of
a male relative or the local public official. 18

Despite their differing views of women’s legal capacities, which
were by no means rigidly enforced by the eleventh century, the two
communities had a similar approach to women’s involvement in court
cases. This most public of arenas outside administrative office seems
not to have been regarded as a fit place for a woman. In Lombard
districts the precept that a woman was unable to legally represent
herself in any transaction included court cases. Byzantine law limited
women’s actions in court to those cases affecting them personally, and

Disputes and Disparity 89

set out that women might be represented ‘in order to save them
shame’l9

Therefore, most recorded occurrences of women at court in a
Lombard context find them accompanied or represented by their
husbands or other men. In 1011 Archonlissa, with her brother and her
advocate, disputed with her stepson Andrea about her morgengab or
morning-gift20 and repayment of a debt from her late husband,
Andrea’s father. Andrea refused to repay the money, claiming that it
had already been paid, but agreed to hand over the morgengab. In return
she allowed him to take the debt note21 It seems that a compromise
was being made here: in order to gain the more valuable asset of a
quarter of her former husband’s lands, Archontissa used the debt note as
both a carrot and a stick. Forgoing the substantial sum of 12 solidi
owed to her, she persuaded Andrea to release ber estates. That the
money may bave meant far less is suggested by the fact that the debt
note was seventeen years old; sbe may therefore bave held onto it for
just such a purpose.

With representation, a woman did not need to come to court at all.
In 1122 Maiurella of Bari’s husband represented her. This time the
argument was not over property per se, but about the opponent and his
men throwing dung into a communal alley, which Maiurella
unsurprisingly objected to.22 In 1196 Musandus de Vesta, on behalf of
his wife and her Sister, claimed land from the monastery of St Leonard,
Siponto, but with the agreement of the two women settled for 12
solidi cash instead.23 In the absence of a husband or other male
relative, a male advocate could be used. Ylaria of Serracapriola, whom
we have already mel, had such representation in 1183. Guaragna of
Bari, when she was in dispute over possession of a mill and a slave
girl with a man from Ravello in 1141, gave her oath via an advocate
and won.24

A male advocate might be used if the husband was unwilling to
take up his wife’s cause. This happened at Bari in 1100. The cburch of
St Nicolas accused two women of illegally holding the lands of a man
tied to the church. The women’s husbands disclaimed any
responsibility, so the court asked the women whom they wanted as
advocates. The women asked their husbands to represent them. They
claimed that the land at issue had been willed to them by a certain
Rigellus. The church replied that their document was invalid because
tied men could not dispose of goods this way, and produced proof of
Rigellus’ status. The judge decided in favour of the church.25 It is

90 Patricia Skinner

interesting here to speculate on the men’s reasons for initially refusing
to help their wives – did they know that the case was untenable? If so,
there are definite echoes here of the women baving taken some action
without their husbands’ sanction or knowledge, which only came to
light when the church objected to it.

Even if most women in Lombard areas complied with the legal
restrictions surrounding them, there were exceptions which reveal a
growing fluidity in customs whose origins were in the laws of the
sixth- and seventh-century Lombard kingdom in the North. Thus in
1039 the widow Alfarana gained a Bari court’s judgement that her son
John should not be able to take property willed to her guardianship in
1019 whilst her sons were minors. This was a notable victory – her
son John was at least twenty by now and entitled to take over
management of the property26 In 1060 Sifa of Bari successfully
claimed a quarter of the lands given by her late husband to the church
as her nwrgengab or morning-gift, and had Lombard law on her side.27

It is striking that both these cases, and those in which we see
Lombard women actively pursuing complaints accompanied by their
male relatives, took place in Bari. Although in Apulia, an area of
Lombard culture, the city was the centre of the Byzantine
administration of the area, and its inhabitants appear to have been
receptive to Byzantine influences in this particular instance.
Elsewhere, Lombard custom appears to have held flITO – there are no
documented instances of women appearing alone in other cities of
Apulia28

Turning now to women in Byzantine areas, did they conform to the
stipulation that they only defend their own interests? It seems so, and
the fact that they were able to pursue a case on their own results in
one or two disputes entirely between women. Thus in Messina in
1171, Cale and Spezia, both widows, fought over a house. Since, in
the words of the record, neither could prove her case ‘except with
heated appeals’, a settlement was agreed whereby Cale dropped the case
for money29

An early and valuable series of documents from Naples reveals the
success of one woman in her dealings at court. Pitru of Naples was a
particularly active and successful litigant. In 963 she had her
neighbour’s window closed up because it looked into hers, and won a
further two cases, brought against her over land, through the use of
oaths30

Disputes and Disparity 91

Elsewhere in Byzantine Italy, Theodote of Stilo, defending the
claim of two plaintiffs over land which she said had been given to her
as dowry, brought local officials and the bishop as witnesses to swear
to her case in 1093.31 And in 1175 a priest and widow dropped their
claim to land in Ravello when Grusa, the defendant, swore that it had
been held communally for 40 years.32 There are other, similar cases of
women in Byzantine areas acting alone.3J

As always with rules, there are exceptions. In 1007 Drosu came to
court at Amalfi to represent her husband. Technically, she was not
defending her own property, as Byzantine law demanded.J4 This may,
however, be connected to a special set of circumstances. The city, the
centre of a small, independent duchy from the mid-ninth century until
submitting to the Normans in 1071, is best known as an enterprising
trading port, with communities of merchants all over the
Mediterranean 3 5 In these rather special conditions, local customs
adapted, and the wives and mothers of the merchants and seamen acted
for them whilst they were away. This seems to have given rise to a
considerable discretion and freedom of action on the part of the women
which is not seen elsewhere. Thus it is not surprising to find
documentary evidence of lone Amalfitan women pursuing and
defending cases.36

Even if lone women were permitted to bring and defend cases on
their own behalf in Byzantine courts, this did not prevent them from
choosing to have male help. Many of the women appearing at court
did so with men from their family or friends .3? Sometimes even this
was no guarantee of success. At Cassano Ionio in 1157 the female
defendant, Arialda, had an advocate, through whom she made her reply,
but lost her case because he would not, as her representative, engage in
a trial by combat to prove her words. Clearly he was less than
confident in her protestations.38

This is one of the few examples we have of the trial by combat
being recorded in southern Italy. In a very much earlier case, at Gaeta
in 999, the missus of emperor Otto III had ordered two defendants to
prove their argument in battle, but they had refused and produced a
payment instead. 39 A duel was actually fought at a court case in
Barletta in 1183.40 Arialda’s advocate, however, seems to have
reflected a general southern Italian hostility to this method of proof. It
was highly unusual here, and each appearance in the records represents
an episode of northern European influence.

92 Patricia Skinner

Modesty and propriety seem to have been the prescription for
women throughout most of their recorded history. The low number of
lone women recorded at court in medieval southern Italy suggests that
the cultural and legal aversion to their presence held for a long period.

There may be another reason for the low number of lone women at
court, and this deals too with my question whether they more often
settled before the case ‘went public’. In two cultures where honour was
vested most explicitly in the status of the male head of the household,
and wbere women’s honour therefore reflected on him, the defeat of a
man in a public court by a woman might have been particularly
humiliating . A women acting alone probably also came under
considerable pressure from her own family to settle instead of
becoming involved in an unseemly battle, and this can in part explain
their relative absence in recorded coun cases. Conftrmation of this
attitude comes from the largely anecdotal but nevenbeless revealing
Chronicon Salemi/anum, an anonymous history of the princes of
Salerno written in the tenth century. In one episode, the wife of a
certain Nannigone is raped by tbe prince. Her response, when
Nannigone returns home, is to beg him to kill her; he instead tells her
to bathe and put on fresh clothes. Neither partner seems even to
consider attempting to bring the prince to justice4 ! The shame (and,
presumably, the futility of challenging the prince) prevents them from
acting.

There is one group of women, abbesses, who are characteristically
presented in general histories of medieval women as set apart from
their contemporaries 42 Their slightly different role in disputes is
illuminating.

In Byzantine southern Italy, being an abbess seems to have allowed
a woman to act as an honorary male. In 1000, the abbess of St
Archangel was in dispute over offerings to the episcopal church of
Naples ,. and won when sbe swore sbe did not owe them·3 Similarly,
sbe won another case in 1024 against a cleric.44 In 1037 Theodonanda,
abbess of the Amalfitan convent of St Maria, settled a dispute over
borders with members of one of the local noble families’5 The abbess
of another Neapolitan convent, St Gregory, represented her house in a
settlement of 1151.46 In 1175 the abbess of St Maria in Brindisi,
another Byzantine area, represented her house to settle a dispute with
local nobles over lands and oxen 4 ? Again, in defending ber convent,
the abbess was not dealing with her own property, according to
Byzantine law. Rather, she was acting as a represenlative, a role

Disputes and Disparity 93

normally denied women, and this is closely linked with ber gender­
neutrnl, or even masculine, role as bead of ber community.

In the Lombard world, bowever, abbesses do not seem to have been
able to transcend the role assigned to their sex, from the limited
evidence that we bave. Tbus in 1135, a Lombard abbess, Agatha of St
Benedict in Polignano, bad an advocate, as did Faustira abbess of St
Jobn Giovinazzo in 1149, wben sbe sougbt defence against Slanders”
However, clerics both male and female may bave required advocates in
parts of southern Italy (the abbot at Cassano lonio in 1157 certainly
bad one), and so an argument on tbe basis of gender may not be
appropriate bere.

Most of tbe women discussed above used the same types of
evidence as men – oaths, witnesses, documents and appeals to the law –
to make their cases. There does not seem to bave been any bar to a
woman swearing an oath once she bad gained access to the court
bearing, either directly or via an advocate. But what circumstances
migbt cause a woman to come to court? Here an interesting regional
difference emerges, for most of the women in Lombard areas were
disputing over family matters, often witb another member of the
family. Six of the eigbt Barese cases listed fall into this category,
wbilst elsewhere it is often difficult to decide wbether the land at issue
is family property or the result of a simple commercial transaction. I
suggested above that the court at Bari may have been influenced by
Byzantine practice: if we remember that Byzantine law allowed women
to fight for their own interests, it appears that many of the women
who did so in the city were taking this as their justification.

In the case of most Lombard women, bowever, their legal status
was a marker of difference even before the case began. Tbus in 1107,
wben the (male) cousin of Damnula brougbt a case on ber bebalf at
the court of Bari, the judge bad first to cbeck with ber whether she
wisbed to be represented in this way·9 Sbe replied that she bad sent
ber cousin, and later in the proceedings sent ber uncle to make an oath
on ber behalf. When the disputed property was divided, she was given
the choice wbicb piece to take, and again was consulted. Tbus
througbout the case, ber absence from court and the fact that male
relatives were representing ber caused delay and inconvenience. In
certain cases, this might even bave prejudiced the woman’s case. At
Brindisi in 1196, Andoysa faced a complaint by the arcbbisbop over
land. Sbe bad no documentary proof of her defence, and then lost ber

94 Patricia Skinner

advocate and claimed she could not fmd another. The court decided she
was ‘malicious’, and she lost. 50

However, there may he another side to the special conditions
surrounding women at court which has not previously heen examined.
That is, women may have exploited the restrictions surrounding them
in order to try to win cases. I would argue that to read women as
victims of such restrictions is sometimes erroneous. This is illustrated
in the case of women and poverty in the medieval period, where it can
be argued that women may have taken advantage of their supposed
vulnerability to make unusual demands. 51

For a Lombard woman at court, her ambiguous legal status might
be seen as an empowerment of sorts. This is not a new line of
argument by any means. It has long been recognized that the
presumption of a woman’s fragility was a two-edged sword in medieval
Italian society, incapacitating her in civil law but also protecting her
from criminal accusations.” I would take this argument a step further,
however, to say that it might also be of use in the civil cases which I
have discussed.

Although most of the surviving court case records are fairly standard
in their procedures, there are a few which reveal a certain amount of
tactical action on the part of the opponents. For example, when
Domnula’s cousin acted for her in 1107, the defendant, Cafarus,
initially delayed his appearance at court to hear the oaths of Domnula’s
witnesses. Examination of other court cases, not involving women,
reveals delay to have been a common ploy on the part of defendants. In
Lucania in 1042, the proceedings were held up whilst the piece of land
in question was accurately defined, witnesses having to be called
initially by the defendant to establish which vineyards were not at
issue. 53 In addition, defendants would often request clarification of the
charge before answering to it. In Salerno in 1065, Leo would not
respond to the charge that he was illegally entering a monastic estate
until the plaintiff physically showed him the lands referred to. Eight
years later, another man accused by the monastery responded with
exactly the same tactic.54

Even if the defendant lost, he might still fight a rearguard delaying
action. Faced with a decision against bim at Barletta in 1155, Leontius
claimed that he could not return the disputed lands because he bad
pledged them as security for bis wife’s dowry. The judges did not view
his plea with sympathy, but it is interesting that Leontius, in effect,
tried to transfer the blame to his wife.”

Disputes and Disparity 95

Finally, with most relevance for this discussion of women at court,
a fragmentary document of 1105, wrillen at Bari, records how the
plaintiff, Peter, had already won a judgement against the defendant,
John. Now he was asking for it to be repeated, but John claimed he
would need an advocate ‘since he did not know how to dispute in this
law.’ This may point up the problems of two neighbouring cultures in
southern Italy, but it also served to delay proceedings.” It is
strikingly similar to the case involving Andoysa, mentioned above.
COUld nOl Andoysa’s plea in 1196, that she could not find another
advocate, represent the same kind of delaying tactics? In neither case
did delay work, but it is a sign that women may have been as fully
conversant with the kind of manoeuvres available in an argument as
men were.

Another illustration of this might be in a court case of 1055, in
which Gregory Monteincollu asked the duke of Amalfi for a judgement
on his boundary dispute with two widOWS, Gemma and Boccia. The
women in this case, since we are here in a Byzantine context and since
they did not therefore require representation, simply refused to come to
court to answer Gregory’s complaint. Perhaps they argued that they
were saving themselves the shame of a court appearance, as Byzantine
texts had it. Again the tactic failed: the duke simply confirmed
Gregory in his lands as set out in the documents that he had
broughl.57 A judgement against two male defendants, who similarly
ignored a summons to court, shows that this was not a peculiarly
feminine manoeuvre, however. 58

Reading some of the cases we have already met in this light, there
seems to be some evidence that women used both tactics employed by
men in court, and moves which they alone could exploit. Why, when
their husbands refused to become involved in a case on their behalf in
1100, did the two women accused by the church of St Nicolas in Bari
nevertheless persist in choosing the hapless men as their
representatives? Did they think that their husbands’ protests might
waste a little more lime, or divert the court’s allention away from the
matter at issue?

It is difficult to extrapolate from the small sample of women acting
alone in southern Italian courts in order to decide whether they were
more successful than men when they got there. Neither men nor
women seem to have been particularly successful when disputing with
clerical opposition: of the nine cases in table I, six seem to have
ended with the woman losing out, but this compares favourably with

96 Palricia Skinner

the success rate of men, where the ecclesiastical side won flfty-eight of
sixty-nine recorded clashes.

The success of the clergy may simply reflect the bias in
preservation discussed above,’9 but the high number of men’s disputes
appears to suggest that men more often took on hopeless cases against
a powerful institutional opponent, whilst women only carne to court
if they were fwly certain of their claim. This may explain the high
proportion of victories for women in the overall total of twenty-seven
cases. When they had admissible evidence in court, this usually
secured them the victory or a satisfactory compromise. When they
faced such evidence against themselves or attempted delay they, as
often as men, failed to win the court’s sympathy. What was different
was the cause of delay (Lombard women needed representation, and
could prevaricate in obtaining it) and women’s level of access to courts
given the cultural distaste in both societies of their presence there.

Are the women who do appear alone truly representative of women
as a group in southern Italy? The answer lies not in the court case
records in isolation, which taken at face value might give a false
impression of the success rate of women in proportion to the numbers
reaching court. Chris Wickham has pointed out that our understanding
of court cases ‘depends on the content of our other evidence about the
people concerned’ .60 Nowhere is this a more apt warning than in the
case of women at court. The success of Pitru of Naples in the three
cases mentioned plus a further two, one with her husband, suggests
that she was more than a sharp tactician in court, and further
investigation revealed that she was in fact a member of a cadet branch
of the ducal house of Naples.61 The stature of the witnesses that
Theodote of Stilo was able to call suggests that she was already quite a
powerful woman locally. In Bari, it is likely that Alfarana, who
prevented her grown-up son from taking over much of his dead father’s
property, was also a member of a local noble family. Furthermore,
this family would take the surname Alfaraniti, suggesting a so-far
unknown prominence of women in Barese society. 62

A further, significant factor in these cases is the very high
proportion of widows among the litigants. It is now generally accepted
that widowhood in medieval society could be a time of enhanced status
and influence. At the same time, a widow might face challenges to her
property-holding from any number of kin. Of the twenty-seven
southern Italian cases listed, a substantial number, eleven, had
widowed litigants. Their status as even temporary heads of their

Disputes and Disparity 97

bousebolds may well bave secured them easier access to court, but this
does not appear to bave enhanced their success rate. In this respect, the
southern Italian evidence mirrors that from other parts of medieval
Europe,,3

The value of court cases as evidence, then, is that they point up
occasions when women had to enter the public gaze to secure their
rights or a just settlement of a dispute. That such a low number
appears in the particular sample I bave discussed sbows that this role
was not, as yet, one to wbich women were thought to be suited. One
can only speculate on the amount of pressure a woman was put under
not to transgress certain limits of bebaviour. In the case of wills, I
bave previously argued that women’s theoretical rigbt to bequeath
property to wbom they pleased was compromised by their unwritten
duty towards their family and cbildren” 4 So, in a case of dispute, it
migbt have been necessary to suppress a woman’s protests before sbe
was able to get to court. Even if sbe got there, subtle pressure still
might be exerted. In 1183, at Naples, Sikelgaita Cacapice ceded
property in dispute to the convent of St Gregory for the sake of her
soul, suggesting that other means of persuasion besides family shame
might be employed.65 Later medieval evidence from northern Italy
suggests that women’s right to litigate continued to be viewed with
ambivalence. Julius Kirshner bigbligbts the contradictions present in
jurists’ attempts to construct a framework in wbicb a wife might
prevent the dissipation of ber dowry by ber busband. Quite apart from
all the legal niceties surrounding the status of the property itself, she
migbt be bampered by baving to ask her father’s pertnission to
proceed. Being able to gain male support for ber claim might also
have been as important as the actual legality of ber case.66

Ultimately, then, the court cases surviving from southern Italy, just
as from many other regions, may say more about the determination of
the individuals who do appear. A key issue appears to be the fact that
early medieval courts did not bave a fum legal tradition to cite: it is
striking that of the cases listed from southern Italy, only one, Sifa’s,
appears to have been won on a legal point. The remainder relied on
compromise or for the most part on oaths. In this respect they reflect
widespread patterns of litigation in the early middle ages.

Were women discriminated against in the legal process? Tbe
evidence speaks for itself: the remarkably low number of women
appearing is no~ I would suggest, an accident of survival. Women’s
right to contest cases was compromised by their legal status overall.

98 Patricia Skinner

Ironically, it may have been their perceived vulnerability that led to
those few who did reach court gaining a victory: to be seen as a
protector of the weak was an important positive quality to those in
power. The records of women’s appearances nevertheless highlight the
limitations on their freedom of action. And such limitations, deriving
from medieval Lombard laws and customs, persisted in Apulia until
the sixteenth century.67

Table 1: Women Litigants in Soutbern Italy
Date Place Plaintiff Defendant Object Winner I evidence

952

963
966
970
974
978
981
997

Naples

Naples

Amrufi

Naples

Naples

Naples

1Amalfi

Naples

1003 Bari

1007 ?Amalfi

1011 Bari

1032 Gaeta

1033 Bari

1039 Bari

1055 AmaIfi

1060 Bari

1093 Stilo

11 00 Bari

11 07 Bari

Theoctista+

Pitru

Peter & wife

Gemm

Peter & wife

Anna+

Spar-anus

Stephen & wife

Caiomaria & d

OrOill (or husb.

Aachontissa*.

John

Bona

Alfarana+

Gregory

SIFA+

Simon

archbishop·

Dornnula*

1141 Bari Guaragna·

1157 CassaDo abbot”
Ionio

11 57 RavelJo Urso phr

John

Stephen

Joanna

Pilru

Pitru

monastery

Orosu

land

window

mill

land

boundary

land

land

land

Caloiohanne.s marriage
goods

division

Pitru

Joanna

Pitru (oath)

Pitru (oath)

monastery (oath)

settlement

Mira (oath+ payment)

Calomaria (law?)

abp Amalfi land Drosu (paid ror
land)

stepson debtl compromise
morgengab

Matrona+ mill Matrona (v
plaintifrs document)

brothers house division (Bona
claimed whole)

son inheritance Alfarana

(docjudges)

Getnrna+ land Gregory (O&B
& Boccia+ refuse to appear)

abbot morgengab Sifa(law’/)

Theodote land Theodote
(witnesses)

Laita$ land abp(document)
& Grirrun$

Cafaros

Mauro

Arialda$+

Rosata+

house, goods Domnula (prev. win
witnesses)

mill, slave

land

land

Guaragn(oath)

abbot (A’s adv refuses
to duel)

Ronta

Disputes and Disparity 99

1171 Messina Ragusa+ Spezia+ house compromise

1175 Ravello Herman pbr Grusa+ land Grusa (oath)

ll83 Naples Silcelgaita convent land convent!

11183 Serracapriola Simon Ylaria· land Y)aria (prev. win)

1196 ?Brindisi archbishop Andoysa land archbishop

‘” party has an advocate + party widowed

NOTES

I am indebted to the British Academy for the Postdoctoral Research
Fellowship wbich enabled me to study the women of medieval southern
Italy. The British School at Rome has provided financial support and a
congenial working environment. This paper was first given at the Third
Annual Conference of the Women’s History Network, Nottingham,
October 1994, whose participants provided me with valued criticism. I am
grateful to Chris Wickham for his comments on an earlier draft.

2 S. Shahar, The Fourth Estate: a History of Women in lhe Middle Ages,
London 1983, pp.11-21, discusses both categories. See also S.M. Stuard,
Women in Medieval Society, Philadelphia 1976, p.9; for a critique of the
traditional definition of ‘power’ as linked with public office, see Women
and Power in the Middle Ages, ed. M. Erler and M. Kowaleski, London
1988, pp.I-I7. Medieval queens, the most visible women in power, have
formed the subject of a recent collection of essays on Medieval Queenship ,
ed. J. Carmi Parsons, Stroud 1993.

3 Most notably for this period, The Settlement of Disputes in Early
Medieval Europe, ed. W. Davies and P. Fouracre, Cambridge 1986. Most
recently for Italy, Chris Wickham, ‘Ecclesiastical dispute and lay
community: Figline Valdamo in the twelfth century’, Melanges de l’Ecole
Franraise de Rome: Moyen Age 108, 1996,7-93.

4 Although a few of the studies in Settlement of Disputes make reference
to individual females, only Jinty Nelson’s paper, ‘Dispute settlement in
Carolingian West Francia’, p.58, examines women’s legal status at court in
any more than a passing reference. Roger Collins. ‘Disputes in early
medieval Spain’, ibid. p.94, simply states that there were no restrictions
on women’s initiation of litigation; whilst Chris Wickham, ‘Land disputes
and their social framework in lombard-Carolingian Italy’, ibid., p.lll,
states that women had no legal standing in Lombard courts, a situation
which the present study examines in more detail. Where studies have been
made of women in court, they bave been limited in tbeir focus: e.g. J.
Kirshner, ‘Wives’ claims against insolvent husbands in late medieval

100 Patricia Skinner

Italy’, in Women of the Medieval World, ed. J. Kirshner and S. Wemple,
Oxford 1985, pp.256-303.

5 I have examined the use of writing as a political statement more fully
in P. Skinner, Family Power in Southern Italy: the Duchy of Gaeta and irs
Neighbours , 850-1139, Cambridge 1995, pp .19-23 . On courtcases as a
means of express ing power, ibid., pp.93-97. See also, R. Morris , ‘Dispute
settlement in the Byzantine provinces in tbe tenth century’, in Selliemenc
of Disputes, p.140. Morris uses evidence from the far South of Italy to
support her findings .

6 The extant placiti from northern Italy are edited in C. Manaresi, I
Placiti del ‘Regnum lraliae’, I-ill, Rome 1955-60. See also R. Balzaretti,
‘The monastery of Sant’Ambrogio and dispute settlement in early medieval
Milan’, Early Medieval Europe 3, 1994, p.2 and bibliography.

7 By the late ninth century, ‘editing out’ the loser’s argument and simply
recording his or her capitulation had become standard in northern Italian
placili: Maneresi, I, p.xviii . A fuller record of the two sides’ arguments
continued to be made in the South, however.

8 Balzaretti, 15 ~ 18 . Another, notorious, example of such falsification in
a southern context was the attempt by Peter the Deacon to support
Montecassino’s claim to vast tracts of land in the South and elsewhere: H.
Bloch, ‘The schism of Anadetus and the Glanfeuil forgeries of Peter the
Deacon’, Traditio 8, 1952, 159-264; A. Mancone, ‘n Registrum Petri
Diaconi’, Bullettino dell’Archivio Paleografico Italiano 2-3, 1956-7; H.
Hoffmann, ‘Chronik nod Urkunde in Montccassino’, Quellen und
Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken 51, 1972,
pp.93-206; G. Loud, Church and Society in the Nonnan Principality of
Capua, Oxford 1984, pp.78-79, 183-84; idem, ‘A Calendar of the
Diplomas of the Norman Princes of Capua’ , Papers of the British School at
Rome 49, 1981, pp.99-143.

9 See, for example, C[odex} D[iplomaticusJ C{ajetanusJ, I, Montecassino
1887 16 (890), CDC 39 (936) and CDC 56 (958). In another case, in 945,
a charter used as evidence is torn up, CDC 47; a compromise is reached in a
case in 957 which oaths have failed to settle, CDC 54.

10 CDC 13, CDC 48.

1 t S. Jean-Thtristes (1054-1264) , ed. A. Guillou, Vatican City, 1980,
document 3.

12 C[odice} D[iplomaticoJ B[arese} .. V: [Le Pergamene di S. Nicola di Bari
(1075-1194) , ed. F. Nitti di Vito, Bari 1902] , document 112.

Disputes and Disparity 10 1

13 C[odicej D{iplomaticoj P{ugliesej, XXX: {Le Canulaire de S. Maneo di
Sculgola, I, ed. l.-M. Martin, Bari 1987J, document 23.

14 As, e.g., in the cases of Robert de Brittus, who agreed to make a
payment to settle a case: Les Acres Latins de S. Maria di Messina (1103-
1250}, ed. L.-R. Menager, Palermo 1963, document 7 (1158); Musandus de
Vesta, persuaded to drop a case against the monastery of St Leonard,
Siponto, in 1196: Regesto di S. Leonardo di Siponlo, ed. F. CamobrecQ,
Rome 1913, document 107.

15 H. Taviani-Carozzi, La Principauti Lombarde de Saleme , lXe-Xle
Siecle, Rome 1991, I, p.577, makes tbe point that land disputes and the
signatures of judges on documents from that city increased dramatically
when there were crises of rule in the principality. People trusted to the law
to preserve their possessions in periods of instability.

16 Codice Dipiomatico Brindisino di.Annibale de Leo, (492-1299), I, ed.
G.M. Monti, Trani 1940, document 33.

t7 CDP XX: Le Pergamene di Conversano, (901-1265), I, ed. G . Coniglio,
Bari 1975, document 147 . This is a valuable case, for it is the earliest
evidence that southern notaries, like their northern counterparts, kept
copies of the documents they wrote.

18 Rothari 204, in The Lombard Laws, trans. K.F. Drew, Philadelphia
1973, p.92.

19 J. Beaucamp, ‘La statutjuridique de la femme a Byzance’, Cahiers de
Civilisation Medievale 20, 1977, pp.149 and 155

20 Lombard law allowed women up to a quarter of their husbands’ property
as a morning-gift on consummation of their marriage: Liutprand 7, in
Drew, p.147.

21 CDB N: Le Pergamene di S. Nicola di Bari (939-1071), ed. F. Nitti di
Vito, Bari 1900, document 11.

22 CDB Y, document 67.

23 Regesto di S. Leonardo. document 107.

24 COB V, document 94.

25 CDB Y, document 32.

26 CDB N, document 27.

27 CDB N , document 39.

102 Patricia Skinner

28 I have not, for the purposes of this survey, examined the copious
charter evidence from the Lombard principality of Salerno. Being close to
both Naples and Amalfi, former Byzantine enclaves, one might expect a
certain amount of mutual exchange with regard to customs, but the main
trend appears to have been for Amalfitans moving into the principality to
adopt Lombard law, rather tban the reverse . Tbus. one might expect the
women of this area to be as conspicuOUSly absent from the courtcase
records as their contemporaries in Apulia.

29 I Diplomi Greei ed Arabi di Sicilia, ed. S. Cusa, Palermo 1868, 1882,
document 112.

30 Monumenta ad Neapolitani Ducatus Historiam Pertinentia, ed. B.
Capasso, ni, Naples 1885, documents 73 . 180 and 201 respectively.

31 S. Jean·Thtristes, Appendix, document 1.

32 [Le] P[ergamene degli] A[rehivi] V[eseovili di] A[malji e] R[avello], II,
ed. C. Salvati , Naples 1974, document 79.

33 For example, Capasso, Monumenta, document 217 (978), Anna
Pictuli, a widow, loses a case against SS Sergius and Bacchus in Naples;
ibid, document 76 (952), Theoctista, of the same Pictuli family, agrees to a
settlement; and document 304 (997), Mira Muca gives and oath and money
to keep some disputed property. (See table I.)

34 C{odice] D{iplomatico] A{malfitano, ed. R. Filangieri di Candida, I,
Naples 1917), document 21.

35 Amalfi’s commerce has formed the subject of work by A. Citarella:
‘Patterns in medieval trade: the commerce of Amalfi before the crusades’,
Journal of Economic History 28, 1968,531-555; ‘Scambi commerciali fra
l’Egilto e Amalfi in un docwnento inedito della Geniza di Cairo’, A{rchiviol
S[/orieo per Ie] P[rovinee] N[apole/ane], 3rd. ser. 9,1971, pp.141-149; ‘n
declino del commercio marittimo di Amalfi’, ASPN, 3rd. ser. 13, 1975,
pp.9-54; see also M. del Treppo and A. Leone, Amalfi Medioevale, Naples
1977, and D. Abulafia, ‘Southern Italy, Sicily and Sardinia in the medieval
Mediterranean economy’, in idem, Commerce and Conquest in the
Mediterranean, 1100-1500, London 1993, essay I, p.17 .

36 E.g. CDA, II, ed. R. Filangieri di Candida, Trani 1951, document 587
(952), Maria the widow settles; (Il] C{odice] P{erris, ed. 1. Mazzoleni and
R. Orefice, I, Amalfi 1985), document 29 (966), Joanna daughter of
Maurini the count wins; CP 5 (981), Drosu daughter of Pulcbari wins;
PAVAR II, document 55 (1157), Rosata the widow wins; PA VAR II,
document 79 (1175), Grusa the widow wins. Like their contemporaries in

Disputes and Disparity 103

other Byzantine areas, however, the women of Amalfi did not always act
alone: CP, document 30 (984), Leo the count and Theodonanda his wife
win; PA VAR I. ed. 1. Mazzoleni. Naples 1972. document 25 (1094).
Sillecta the widow and her sons settle.

37 A series of cases from Naples conforms to this pattern, with women
appearing alongside husbands, brothers and other men: Capasso,
Monumenta. documents 74 (951) and 80 (952). couples win; 210 (976).
brothers and sister lose; 259 (989), group including women loses; 340
(lOll), brother and sister with her husband win; 354 (1014), consortium
including women loses; 371 (1016), three sisters and brother and two
husbands divide land with monastery; and 418 (1028). two men and a
woman swear they own bouses and give money to secure them from
defendant.

38 Ca11e Laline di Abbazie Calabresi provenienti dall’Archivio
Aldobrandini, ed. A. Pratesi, Vatican City 1958, document 20.

39 CDC 100.

40 CDP XXI: US Chartes de Troia, I, ed. 1.-M . Martin, Bari 1976,
document 102.

41 Chronicon Salernitanum, ed. U. Westerbergb, Stockholm 1956,
chapter 65.

42 See, for example, B. Anderson and 1. Zinsser, A History of Their Own,
I, London 1989, pp.183-93. On Byzantine abbesses. 1. Herrin, ‘In search
of Byzantine women: three avenues of approach’ in Images of Women in
Antiquity. ed. A. Cameron and A. Kuhr~ London 1983. pp.179-81. See
also, for a more general discussion. 1. Herrin, ‘Public and private forms of
religious commitment among Byzantine women’, in Women in Ancient
Societies: ‘an Illusion of the Night’, ed. L. AIcber, S . Fischler and M.
Wyke. London 1994. pp.18 t -203.

43 Capasso, Monumenta. document 313 .

44 Ibid., document 400.

45 CDA. I. document 49.

46 Naples, Arcbivio di Stato, Monasteri Soppressi 3437, document 175.

47 Codice Diplomatico Brindisino, document 20.

48 CDP XXI, document 83 and CDB V, document 102 respectively.

49 CDB V, document 46.

50 Codice Diplomatico Brindisino, document 33.

104 Palricia Skinner

51 P. Skinner, ‘Gender and poverty in tbe medieval community’ in
Medieval Women in their Communities. ed. D . Watt, University of Wales
Press. forthcoming.

52 G. Rossi, ‘Statutjuridique de la femme dans l’bistoire du droit italien’,
Recueiis de ia Sociert Jean Bodin 12/2, 1968, p.128.

53 Saint Nicolas de Donnoso. ed. A. GUillOll, Vatican City 1967,
document 3.

54 Pergamene del Monaslero Benedeltino di S. Giorgio, (1038· 1698), ed.
L. Cassese, Salerno 1950, documents 4 and 5: this duplication of the tactic
suggests that such a plea had almost become a standard ritual in Salcrnitan
courtcases by this date .

55 COB VII!: Le Pergamene di Barlelta, Archivio Capitolare (897-1285),
ed. F. Nitti di Vito, Bari 1914, document 72.

56 CDS V, document 43.

57 CP, document 33.

l8 CDC 140 (1021)

S9 B.A. Hanawalt, ‘The widow’s mite : provisions for medieval London
widows’ in Upon My Husband’s Death: Widows in the Literature and
Histories of Medieval Europe, ed. L. Min-er, Ann Arbor 1992, p.35.
highlights the lack of success that widows here had against the clergy, and
the pattern does not appear to rely on the survival of evidence.

60 ‘Land disputes ‘ , p.122.

61 Skinner, Family Power, pp.44, 144-45.

62 A survey of twelfth-century families in the city reveals a considerable
number with female-derived surnames, a phenomenon which requires
further detailed study.

6 3 The pressures on Frankish widows from predatory kin, and their own
assertiveness, is highlighted by S.F. Wemple. Women in Frankish
Society, Philadelphia 1981 , p.49 and 1. Nelson, The wary widow’ in
Property and Power, ed. W. Davies and P. Fouracre, Cambridge 1995; the
case of Ottonian widows is discussed by K. Leyser, ‘Women of the Saxon
aristocracy’, in Rule and Conflict in an Early Medieval Society, Oxford
1979, p.62; later medieval evidence from England reveals the continued
vulnerability of the widow with property: Hanawalt, ‘The widow’s mite’ .
pp.26-35 .

64 Skinner, ‘Women’.

Disputes and Disparity 105

65 Naples, Archivio di Stata, Monasteri Soppressi 3437, document 322.

66 J. Kirshner, ‘Wives’ claims against insolvent husbands’, passim.

67 Kirshner and Wemple, p.25?