Dowries in fourteenth-century Venice

Renaissance Studies

Volumn 16, Issue 4, 2002, Pages 430-473

  Guzzetti, Linda ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 37849020385     PISSN: 02691213     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1477-4658.00028     Document Type: Article

References (205)

1. On property of the dowry, see Francesco Ercole, 'L'istituto dotale nella pratica e nella legislazione statutaria dell'Italia superiore', Rivista italiana per le scienze giuridiche, 45 (1908), 191-302; 46 (1910), 167-257, particularly 46, 171-6;
2. Manlio Bellomo, Ricerche sui rapporti patrimoniali tra coniugi. Contributo alla storia della famiglia medievale (Milano, 1961), particularly ch. III;
3. Bellomo, 'Die Familie und ihre rechtliche Struktur in den italienischen Stadtkommunen des Mittelalters (12.-14. Jahrhundert)', in Alfred Haverkampf (ed.), Haus und Familie in der spätmittelalterlichen Stadt (Köln and Wien, 1984), 122-4.
4. In the Judaeo-Christian tradition, widows were considered as a group deserving protection. See André Rosambert, La veuve en droit canonique jusqu'au XIVe siècle (Paris, 1923);
5. James A. Brundage, 'Widows as disadvantaged persons in medieval canon law', in Louise Mirrer (ed.), Upon my Husband's Death: Widows in the Literature and History of Medieval Europe. (Ann Arbor, MI, 1993), 193-206.
6. Diane Owen Hughes, 'From brideprice to dowry in Mediterranean Europe', Journal of Family History, 3 (1978), 262-96;
7. Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, 'La mère cruelle. Maternité, veuvage et dot dans la Florence des XIVe-XVe siècles', Annales ESC, 38/5 (1983), 1097-109
8. trans, in Klapisch-Zuber, Women, Family and Ritual in Renaissance Italy (Chicago, IL and London, 1985), 117-31;
9. Isabelle Chabot, 'Lineage strategies and the control of widows in Renaissance Florence', in Sandra Cavallo (ed.), Widowhood in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Harlow, 1999), 127-44;
10. Julius Kirshner, '"Li emergenti bisogni matrimoniali" in Renaissance Florence', in 'Visibilità' delle donne tra Medioevo e età moderna: carte private e pubbliche apparenze, lusso e prescrizioni (Perugia, 1999) (Università degli studi, Facoltà di lettere e filosofia, Studi storico-antropologici 20-1), 63-5
11. reprinted in William Connell (ed.), Society and Individual in Renaissance Florence (Berkeley, 2002), 79-109.
12. Agnes Fine and Angela Groppi, 'Histoire, femmes et société s. Editorial', CLIO: histoire, femmes et société = Femmes, dot et patrimoine, 7 (1998), 7-18;
13. Chabot, 'La loi du lignage. Notes sur le système successoral florentin (XIVe/XVe-XVIIe siècles)', CLIO: histoire, femmes et société, 7 (1998), 51-72;
14. Klapisch-Zuber, 'La bourse ou les boules de saint Nicolas. De quelques représentations des biens féminins en Italie', CLIO: histoire, femmes et société, 7 (1998), 73-89;
15. Maristella Botticini, 'A loveless economy? Intergenerational altruism and the marriage market in a Tuscan town, 1415-1436', Journal of Econmonic History, 59 (1999), 104-21.
16. The ius commune was a combination of Roman and canon law, developed and taught at the universities, in Italy first of all in Bologna It did not apply everywhere and for all matters, but in most Italian cities it applied when in customary law a rule failed. The ius commune had an 'international' character and was technically more precise than the statutes and customs (iura propria), to which it tended to become a framework. See Thomas Kuehn, 'Law, schools of, in J. R. Strayer (ed.), Dictionary of the Middle Ages (New York, 1986), 7: 512-17.
17. Giovanni Tamassia, La famiglia italiana net secoli decimoquinto e decimosesto (Milano, 1910), 203;
18. Bellomo, La condizione giuridica della donna. Vicende antiche e moderne (Torino, 1970), 44;
19. C. Klapisch-Zuber, 'Le complexe de Griselda', Mélanges de l'Ecole française de Rome, 94 (1982), 7-44
20. trans, in Klapisch-Zuber, Women, Family and Ritual, 213-46;
21. Klapisch-Zuber, 'La mère cruelle', 1100.
22. On women in Venice, see Stanley Chojnacki, 'Patrician women in early Renaissance Venice', Renaissance Studies, 21 (1974), 176-203
23. reprinted in Chojnacki, Women and Men in Renaissance Venice. Twelve Essays on Patrician Society (Baltimore, MD and London, 2000), 115-31;
24. Chojnacki, 'Dowries and kinsmen in early Renaissance Venice', Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 5 (1974-5), 571-600
25. reprinted in Chojnacki, Women and Men in Renaissance Venice, 132-52;
26. Chojnacki, 'Nobility, women and the state: marriage regulations in Venice, 1420-1535', in T. Dean and K. Lowe (eds), Marriage in Italy 1300-1650 (Cambridge, 1998), 128-51
27. Chojnacki, 'Daughters and oligarchs: gender and the early Renaissance State', in J. Brown and R. Davis (eds), Gender and Society in Renaissance Italy (London and New York, 1998), 63-86
28. Anna Bellavitis, 'Dot et richesse des femmes au XVI siècle', CLIO: histoire, femmes et sociétés, 7 (1998), 91-100;
29. Bellavitis, 'Patrimoni e matrimoni a Venezia nel Cinquecento', in Giulia Calvi and I. Chabot (eds), Ricchezze dette donne. Diritti patrimoniali e poteri familiari in Italia (sec. XIII-XIX) (Torino, 1998), 149-60;
30. e siècle (Paris and Rome, 2001).
31. Roberto Cessi (ed.), Statuti veneziani di facopo Tiepolo del 1242 e le loro glosse (Venezia, 1938), 1, 39: 'si mulier in potestate viri aliquam cartulam fecerit contra repromissam suam non valeat . . . sed de omnibus bonis que ipsa possidet etiam sine consensu viri facere possit et securitatem et alienationem sicut sibi placuerit'. Hereafter, quotes from the first five books of the statutes are from the Cessi edition and quotes from the sixth book from an early printed edition present in the Berlin state library. For both, the abbreviation 'Stat, no v.' is used.
32. These records - together with several other databases concerning medieval and modern Venetian history - will soon be on an Internet site of the University of Venice: http://helios.unive.it/riccdst/index.html. For the meaning of legal terms used in this paper, see Glossary, 469-73.
33. See note 7.
34. On poor widows in Florence, see: Chabot, 'Poverty and the widow in late Medieval Florence', Continuity and Change, 3 (1988), 291-311.
35. v. Hereafter, the dates will be indicated according to the modern reckoning. Except in quotations, personal names are given in the Italian spelling. All unpublished material is from the state archives of Venice.
36. On Venetian moneys and Venetian notaries, see Glossary.
37. The 'legal heirs', who had to apply for the dowry restitution of a predeceased wife, were her heirs (successores) if she died intestate, but her testamentary executors (commissarii/e) if she made a testament, or the furnitores of her testament after the death of the executors. Concerning these persons, we find in a gloss: 'Quod dictum est de muliere, dicendum est de eius commissario, furnitore vel successore', Stat, nov., gloss to 'quoniatn multociens', 48.
38. The numerous testaments Marino drew up are preserved in the section 'Archivio notarile, testatnenti' of the Venetian state archives, his other acts in the section C.I.N. in five buste (folders) (111, 112, 113, 114, 115). The first three folders include single documents on parchment, chronologically ordered, while the last two folders contain registers on parchment. Both registers examined here are in the busta 114 and are entitled: Diiudicatum. Marino added on the larger one his signum tabellionis and his signature: 'Ego Marinus plebanus sancti Gervasii notarius et aule incliti ducis Veneciarum cancellarius complevi et roboravi.' The larger one (1366-91) has 200 pp. (100 folii), the smaller (1374-80) 37 pp. (19 folii). In both registers the folii have a modern numbering in pencil. In the references to these registers the larger one will be indicated with 1, the smaller one with 2. The two registers will be examined together because they do not have significant differences in content and they overlap in time. Not all records are written in the same hand, but different hands appear in both registers. The two registers differ only in a few points: in the second the date and the notary of a few pieces of evidence for the entitlement of the heirs of the deceased wives as applicants were omitted; the formula 'proprietates casarum et terrarum cooperte et discooperte' is used only in the second register.
39. In order to avoid the possible difficulties for the widow resulting from the absence of written evidence, in 1449 the Greater Council obliged the notaries to give the doge's chancery a copy of all securitatis carte for the dowries they drew. Chojnacki, 'Daughters and oligarchs', 84.
40. Marriage contracts were never mentioned as evidence, but passages from them were occasionally quoted in husbands' testaments.
41. In these last cases it could be only indicated that somebody had a general power of attorney ('scriptus/a in curia pro eo/ea'). On the procurationis carte see also the Glossary.
42. r, 22.08.1375); 'Agnes, her mother, her daughter's proxy in court, proved and attested by oath her dowry.'
43. r, 07.07.1378.
44. See the schema in the Appendix, p. 469.
45. None the less, a few widows presented the testaments of their late husbands as evidence for the restitution of their dowry in court, as we will see further.
46. Stat. nov. 4:9; 'si uxor reliquit dimissoriam viro in pecunie quantitate, volumus quod de tanta quantitate, quanta fuit dimissoria, non fiat iudicatum, sed tantum de residuo, et dimissoria remaneat ipso iure apud virum'. Among the applicants there were only a few husbands, as we will see further.
47. Dennis Romano, Patricians and Popolani: the Social Foundations of Venetian Renaissance State (Baltimore, MD, 1987), 34-6.
48. On the notarial authentication of the conveying of the dowry to the husband at the time of the wedding in Tuscany, see Kirshner, 'Maritus lucretur dotem uxoris sue premortue in late medieval Florence', Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Reditsgeschichte, 108 (1991), Kanonische Abteilung, 77, 111-55;
49. Samuel Kline Cohn, 'Marriage in the mountains: the Florentine territorial state, 1348-1500', in T. Dean and K. Lowe (eds), Marriage in Italy 1300-1650 (Cambridge, 1998), 174-96.
50. On non-dotal goods, see Ercole, 46, 203-11, 249-51;
51. Kirshner, 'Materials for a gilded cage: non-dotal assets in fourteenth and fifteenth century Florence, 1300-1500', in D. Kertzer and R. Sailer (eds), The Family in Italy from Antiquity to the Present (New Haven, CT, 1991), 184-207. Venetian testaments show that some wives themselves administered their non-dotal goods.
52. Iacobus Bertaldus, Splendor venetorum civitatis consuetudinum, ed. Franciscus Schupfer (Bologna, 1895;
53. reprinted Torino, 1962), 36-7.
54. These non-dotal goods had to be secured separately, i.e. neither through the carta securitatis repromisse nor through the carta augmenti dotis. Also in the glosses to the statutes, the distinction between the two types of non-dotal goods was drawn, Stat. nov. 1:20, gloss to 'quoniam multociens', 51-2.
55. For the property that could be claimed together with the dowry, it was stated: 'id est dimissoriis ei dimissis et aliis bonis, que ab intestato perveniunt ad mulieres et ea habuerunt in sua potestate ipsarum viri, et donis factis in usu veteri, que debent inseri et poni in huiusmodi breviario insimul cum suis repromissis, et exigi de bonis viri, sicut repromisse' (Stat. nov. 1:31, gloss to 'bonis').
56. v.
57. Chojnacki, 'From trousseau to groomgift in late Medieval Venice', in Ellen E. Kittell and Thomas F Madden (eds), Medieval and Renaissance Venice (Urbana, 1999), 141-65, particularly 148-54
58. On instances of corredum in this new meaning in the late fourteenth century, see Linda Guzzetti, Venezianische Vermächtnisse. Die soziale und wirtschaftliche Situation von Frauen im Spiegel spätmittelalterlicher Testamente (Stuttgart and Weimar, 1998) (Ergebnisse der Frauenforschung 50), 110, 149.
59. At the beginning of the first register, the names of the judges were repeated in each decision; thereafter in the first register and always in the second, those of the curia proprii were just denominated iudices suprascripti. When the composition of this court changed, the sentence 'Tempore domini nostri [name of the doge] incliti ducis Veneciarum et dominorum [names of the judges] iudicum', was interpolated between two decisions.
60. On the mechanism of dowry restitution in court, the contributions of the legal historian Enrico Besta are still valuable. Besta, 'Il diritto e le leggi civili di Venezia fino al dogato di Enrico Dandolo', Ateneo Veneto, 20/2 (1897), 290-320; 22/1 (1899), 145-84, 302-31; 22/2 (1899), 61-93, 202-48, particularly 22/2 (1899), 310-13;
61. Besta, 'Gli statuti civili di Venezia anteriori al 1244. Prefazione', Nuovo Archivio Veneto, n.s., 1 (1901), 40-2.
62. See also Chojnacki, 'Riprendersi la dote: Venezia, 1360-1530', in S. Seidel Menchi, A. Jacobson Schutte, and T. Kuehn (eds), Tempi e spazi di vita femminile tra medioevo e età moderna (Bologna, 1999), 461-92, especially 466-7
63. trans, as 'Getting back the dowry', in A. Jacobson Schutte, T. Kuehn, and S. Seidel Menchi (eds), Time, Space and Women's Lives in Early Modern Europe (Kickville, 2001), 77-96;
64. Judges had to sign all breviaria (written records) when they entered them in the trial minutes, with the exception of those confirming the dowry: 'de breviariis mulierum vadiam comprobandi de sua repromissa et ceteris bonis suis, nihil dicimus quod examinatores in eis subscribant quia non est necesse quod subscribant' (Stat. nov. 1:24, 31).
65. This divergent provision was changed in the course of the fourteenth century (Stat. nov. 6:7), so that at the time when Marino drew up the records studied here the judges had to write down and sign these breviaria also.
66. Giudici del Proprio, vadimoni; the first busta (register 1-7) spans the period 1429-1476.
67. r_v.
68. The legal heirs of deceased wives had to perform the same oaths as widows. To make the following explication of the procedure easier to read, 'legal heirs of the deceased wives' will not be repeated every time.
69. Stat. nov. 1:54, 55. In the registers of the notary Marino no marriage presents are mentioned.
70. The court had to evaluate any property of the husband that was kept by the widow. The valuation was usually done in the court room. But when 'erunt multe et graves ad portandum vel indecentes ad videndum' ('when the objects were numerous and heavy to carry or indecent to see'), the judges had to go outside the court to estimate the property (Stat, nov., gloss to 'quoniam multociens', 49).
71. Stat. nov. 1:55, gloss 299 to 'per quam': 'Ecce mortuo martuo, mulier non fecit vadimonium, pro eo quod heredes mariti defuncti satis fecerunt uxori eius de dote.' On the meaning of vadimonii carta, see Glossary.
72. Bertaldus, Splendor, 35; 'dicta solucio valet fieri, et solet, de voluntate aliquando viri, si supervixit, vel, si mortuus fuerit, de voluntate eius commissarii vel eius heredum, sine vadia vel iuramento aliquo et sine strepitu iudicii, quod vero fit raro'.
73. Ercole, 'Listituto dotale', 46, 223;
74. Giorgio Zordan, ;l vari aspetti della comunione familiare di beni nella Venezia dei secoli XI-XII', Studi veneziani, 8 (1966), 135.
75. Also, among the members of the eastern Mediterranean minority in Venice, most dowries were returned out of court; see Brunhilde Imhaus, Le minoranze orientait a Venezia 1300-1510 (Roma, 1997), 201.
76. Guzzetti, Venezianische Vermächtnisse, 154-5.
77. See also http://vill.unive.it, Guzzetti, Tables to Venezianische Vermächtnisse, Table 125.
78. Steven Epstein, Wills and Wealth in Medieval Genoa 1150-1250 (Cambridge, MA, 1984), 103-117.
79. Stat. nov. 6:16; 'de cetero dominus dux teneatur ad executionem ducere . . . bona ipsius viri possint et debeant intromitti et accipi per dominum ducem'.
80. The statute concerning dowry restitution did not indicate the period in which the legal heirs of predeceased wives must restore the dowry (Stat. nov. 1:54). The subject was dealt with in a gloss to this statute (gloss 287 to 'poterit dare'): 'Quid, si mulier moritur ante maritum, infra quod tempus commissarii vel eius heredes tenebuntur dare vadiam? Dicas quod infra XXX annos.' The same was reported in the gloss to 'quoniam multociens', 47.
81. Stat. nov. 1:54;
82. Widows or the heirs of deceased wives could be obliged to sue husbands, or their heirs, to force them to restore dowries. Legally, it was required that husbands secured dowries through their whole estates, but, if they guaranteed them through specific items of property, it was easier for the widows to have them quickly restored; see Kirshner, 'Encumbering private claims to public debt in Renaissance Florence', in Vito Piergiovanni (ed.), The Growth of the Bank as Institution and the Development of Money-business Law (Berlin, 1993), 40.
83. The statutes obliged the iudices proprii to accept both the decisions of the iudices examinatores concerning the real estate which was given to the widows and those of their predecessors, without having to consider them again 'ad evitandas dilationes pariter et expensas' ('to avoid both delays and costs') (Stat. nov. 3:41, 54).
84. V;
85. v.
86. Stat. nov. 1:60. 'Cum secundum consuetudinem approbatam mulier annum et diem post decessum viri de bonis mariti vivere possit, ut inde questio non oriatur, determinantes dicimus quod, quandocumque infra annum et diem mulier fecerit iudicatum de sua repromissa, ab inde in antea non debeat vivere de bonis viri, tamen remaneat in domo quousque solutionem plenariam receperit de sua dote. Verum si soluta fuerit de sue repromissa sine iudicatum infra annum et diem, similiter ab inde non vivat de bonis, salvo eo quod mulier habere et gaudere debeat omnia, que sibi relicta fuerint a viro suo.'
87. In the sixth book (Stat. nov. 6:17), it was specified that the widow had to leave the house of the deceased husband two months after the dowry's complete restitution: 'quod uxor defuncti exeat de domo presentata sibi dote et dimissoria infra duos menses, et ad hoc per iudices compleatur'. This new provision was already presented in a note to the statute 1:60 ('verum si soluta fuerit').
88. Bellomo notes that the situation of widows was easier in other Italian towns, where they could live on the estates of their husbands until the repayment of the dowry was completed: Bellomo, Ricerche sui rapporti patrimoniali, 219.
89. Stat. nov. 4:33.
90. The amount of the dowry is almost always given in these records. Only in a few diiudicatus carte of the second register was the amount of the dowry omitted with reference to the vadimonii carta ('sicut in vadimonii carta amplius continetur'). When the due amount exactly corresponded to the dowry, the formula 'ratione dicte sue repromisse' was used; when it was lower, 'ratione residui dicte sue repromisse'. Occasionally, by restitution of non-dotal goods together with the dowry, an amount higher than the dowry was returned.
91. r_v, 10.11.1400: 'pro quibus habuit res et bona mobilia extimata per iudices proprii pro ut apparet per scripturam extimationis ipsorum iudicum et eciam sic ipsa domina Francischina fatetur se habuisse'. The error of the notary was that he wrote 71 ducats instead of 171.
92. 'He was satisfied he had had and received from her.'
93. v, 09.11.1390; 'quod ipsa Marina existens infirma ex qua infirmitate decessit dixit suprascriptis testibus quod ipsa nolebat quod dictus Lazarus quondam vir suus gravaretur ultra quantitatem librarum septem grossorum pro repromissa sua cum ipse plus non habuerit ab ea pro repromissa licet ipsa Marina habuerit cartam dotis ab eo de libris sexdecim'.
94. V, 10.10.1381).
95. Probably the widows were more inclined to care for the soul of the deceased husbands -praying and ordering masses - if they had been well treated in their testaments.
96. v, 12.12.1382; 'recepit ab ea pro eius repromissa in rebus extimatis libras 4 grossorum et promisit sibi facere cartam de libris 4 cum dimidia grossorum'.
97. Epstein, Wills and Wealth, 104. In many Italian cities both the presents of the bridegroom to the bride and the bequests of the husband to his future widow were limited; Bellomo, Ricerche sui rapporti patrimoniali tra coniugi, ch. 1;
98. Bellomo, Profili della famiglia italiana nell'età dei Comuni (Catania, 1966), 135-45.
99. See note 2
100. Stat. nov. 1:61: 'quibus [dotibus] debemus favorabilius confavere'.
101. Stat. nov. 1:54; 'per quam [cartulam diiudicatus] accipiet eciam de bonis viri per crosnam et pelliciam vidualem, quam mulieres ex consuetudine habent, decern pro centenario, facta ratione repromisse a centum vigintiquinque libris de moneta S. Marci et infra'.
102. To establish the beginning of noble marriages Chojnacki considers the date of the securitatis carta as close to that of the wedding; see Chojnacki, 'La formazione della nobiltà dopo la Serrata', in Lellia Cracco Ruggini (ed.), Storia di Venezia.
103. G. Arnaldi, G. Cracco and A. Tenenti (eds), La formazione dello stato patrizio (Roma, 1997), 3, 641-725;
104. Chojnacki, 'From trousseau'. But, as he assumes that it was common for widows to ignore the one-year deadline for the restitution of their dowries, he does not consider the dates of the diiudicatus carte as marking the termination of marriages and does not calculate the marriage duration. He speaks only of the 'Intervals between the conveying of the dowry and the vadimonium' (Chojnacki, 'Riprendersi la dote', 472).
105. C.I., b. 154, no. 12, notary Bartolomeo Ravacaulo, 26.04.1301.
106. v;
107. 'quod dictus quondam Iohannes Maliperissa olim de confinio S. Samuelis tunc infirmus modo est circha dies quindecim de qua infirmitate decesit, dictus testis se reperit esse in domo ipsius Iohannis Maliperissa qui dictus Iohannes dixit ipsi testi ser Bertuci (sic) si esset necesse ego volo quod sitis testis qualiter recepi ab uxore mea Francisca pro sua repromissa libras octo grossorum'.
108. The only cases considered are those where dated securitatis carte or instrumenta dotis were presented as evidence.
109. As the dowry could be acknowledged in the course of the marriage instead of at its beginning, long lasting marriages may be more numerous than it appears in the calculations. There cannot be marriages much shorter than they appear to be, since no husband acknowledged the dowry before the wedding and the widow had only one year to apply for restitution of the dowry.
110. Accoding to Ruggiero's data, 50 per cent of marriages lasted longer than nine years, 25 per cent longer than eighteen years and more than 10 per cent longer than twenty-seven years; see G. Ruggiero, The Boundaries of Eros: Sex Crime and Sexuality in Renaissance Venice (New York, 1985), 14, 170 note 8.
111. C. Klapisch-Zuber, 'La fécondité des Florentines (XIV-XV siècles)', Annales de démographie historique, (1988), 41-57, particularly 48. Klapisch-Zuber also considers the marriages that ended with the death of the wife.
112. Real property was mentioned thirty-two times, in twelve of which its monetary value was added.
113. On the dos estimata and inestimata see the Glossary.
114. Clothes and objects were seldom itemized or described in the diiudicatus carte, other than in the vadimonii carte.
115. The law of 9 June 1334 can be found in: Giulio Bistort, Il magistrato alle pompe della repubblica di Venezia. Studio storico (Venezia, 1912) (Regia Deputazione veneta di Storia Patria. Miscellanea di storia veneta 3:5), 106, 331-2.
116. The law of 21 May 1360 is published in Samuele Romanin, Storia documentata di Venezia (10 vols, Venezia 1853-1861;
117. reprinted Venezia 1972-1975), 3, 386.
118. There are no studies on the enforcement of the sections of the sumptuary laws concerning clothes and objects in fourteenth-century Venice. Newett briefly remarks that until the second half of the fifteenth century the enforcement of sumptuary laws was committed to different officials; see Margaret M. Newett, 'The sumptuary laws of Venice in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries', in T. F. Tout and J. Tait (eds), Historical Essays, First Published in 1902 in Commemoration of the fubilee of the Owens College, Manchester (Manchester, 1907), 245-78, particularly 251. In other Italian cities the bequests of husbands to wives were subject to stricter legal limitations than in Venice (see note 58).
119. Chojnacki, 'Marriage legislation and patrician society in fifteenth century Venice', in Law, Custom and Social Fabric in Medieval Europe (Kalamazoo, 1990), 163-84
120. reprinted in Chojnacki, Women and Men in Renaissance, 76-94;
121. Reinhold C. Mueller, 'The procurators of San Marco in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries: a study of the office as a financial and trust institution', Studi veneziani, 13 (1971), 175-84.
122. See also the Internet site of the University of Venice, Databases on Venetian history, Guzzetti, Tables to Venezianische Vermächtnisse, Tables 55 and 93.
123. For the fifteenth century, Chojnacki notes this same way of protecting dowries; see Chojnacki, 'Riprendersi la dote', 482.
124. The decision of the Greater Council of 16 October 1291 is reported in Roberto Cessi (ed.), Deliberazioni del Maggior Consiglio (3 vols, Bologna, 1931-50)
125. (R. Accademia dei Lincei. Atti delle assemblee costituzionali italiane dal medioevo al 1831. Ser. 3: Parlamenti e consigli dei maggiori comuni italiani. Sez. 1: Deliberazioni del Maggior consiglio di Venezia), 3, 307.
126. The decision was also added to the capitulare of the iudices de proprio, where it appeared under the title 'Dent (iudices) imprestita pro repromissis pro eo quod valent', Melchiarre Roberti (ed.), Magistrature giudiziarie veneziane (vol. 1, Padova, 1906; vols 2-3, Venezia, 1909), 2, 89.
127. This issue is discussed by Gino Luzzatto, Il debito pubblico della repmbblica di Venezia dagli ultimi decenni del XII secolo alia fine del XV (Milano and Varese 1963), 63.
128. First published: Prestiti della repubblica di Venezia (sec. XIII-XV). Introduzione storica e documenti a cura di Gino Luzzatto (Padova 1929) (Documenti finanziari della repubblica di Venezia, 3. serie, vol. 1, parte 1).
129. Mueller, 'Effetti della guerra di Chioggia (1378-1381) sulla vita economica e sociale di Venezia', Ateneo Veneto, n.s. 19 (1981), 27-41.
130. Only the cases where the monetary value of the dowry is known are taken into account. Marriages are considered noble when at least one spouse - almost always the husband - was noble. The same approach is used to define the marriages of foreigners and artisans.
131. The second most frequent value was £1000 ad grossos (383.14 ducats), with 78 occurrences; the third most frequent was 60 ducats with 74 occurrences.
132. See Guzzetti, Tables 67 and 68 (as note 41). Since in testaments the date of marriage celebration was not indicated, it is not possible to group chronologically the dowries mentioned there.
133. Sixty-eight of the 78 cases of 1000 libre ad grossos dowries concerned noble marriages. This amount was the most frequent value for all noble marriages studied, but not for those celebrated after 1370.
134. Chojnacki, 'La formazione', 3, 641-725.
135. Chojnacki, 'From trousseau', 143.
136. Donald E. Queller and Thomas Madden, 'Father of the bride: fathers, daughters and dowries in late Medieval and early Renaissance Venice', Renaissance Quarterly, 46 (1993), 685-711.
137. Philippe Braunstein shows that in the period between 1420 and 1450 a dowry of about 60 ducats was typical in Cannareggio, an peripheral area of Venice; see Braunstein, 'Cannareggio, zona di transito?', in Donatella Calabi and Paola Lanaro (eds), Città italiana e i luoghi degli stranieri, XIV-XVIII secolo (Roma and Bari, 1998) (Biblioteca di cultura moderna 1141), 59.
138. The average dowry values of women artisans and of the wives of artisans in Marino's records confirm the disparities within the single trades Romano notes; see Romano, Patricians and Popolani, 35-6.
139. On the basis of the acknowledgements drawn up by the husbands, Stefano Piasentini shows that most dowries of wives and daughters of sailors amounted to 60-90 ducats; see Piasentini, 'La setta di Londra: un ammutinamento di ciurme veneziane del 1396', Studi storici, 37 (1996), 537.
140. At the beginning of each record, the place of origin was indicated, not for the woman whose dowry was being adjudicated, but for her husband or father in law. In only a few cases, through quotations of testaments or witnesses, is it possible to know if the woman or her father were foreigners.
141. Imhaus, Le minoranze orientali, 198.
142. Luca Molà refers to cases of women from the merchant lucchese families who married Venetian noble men and had dowries of 2000-4000 ducats in the period between 1370 and 1424. Margherita Paruta, who had a dowry of only 500 ducats, received from the testament of her husband Marco another 1500 ducats as a bequest. See Molà, La comunità dei lucchesi a Venezia. Immigrazione e industria della seta nel tardo medioevo (Venezia, 1994) (Istituto veneto di scienze, lettere ed arti, Memorie, Classe di scienze morali, lettere ed arti, 53), 120 note 27, 134.
143. The only cases taken into account are those in which the money value of the dowry is known.
144. Stat. nov., gloss to 'quoniam multociens', 52: 'Item nos videmus cottidie quod misere mulieres et etiam commissarii earum probant falsa et degerant in dotibus exigendis, quare hic dabitur materia degerandi.'
145. In Venice the most common hyperpera were those from Byzantium and Ragusa The florins meant here were the Florentine coins with almost the same value as ducats. On moneys and their rates of exchange, see Peter Spufford, Handbook of Medieval Exchange (London, 1986), 81, 286-91.
146. r, 03.10.1373: '£700, contando lo ducato £4 solidi 12 denarii 6 ... de la sovrascrita moneda'. The currency meant here was the libra imperialis.
147. On dowry inflation in Florence, see J. Kirshner and Anthony Molho, 'The dowry fund and the marriage market in early Quattrocento Florence', Journal of Modern History, 50/3 (1978), 403-38;
148. Klapisch-Zuber, 'Le complexe de Griselda'; A. Molho, Marriage Alliance in Late Medieval Florence (Cambridge, MA, 1994), particularly 157, 310.
149. On dowry inflation in Ragusa, see Susan Mosher Stuard, 'Dowry increase and increments in wealth in Medieval Ragusa', Journal of Economic History, 41 (1981), 795-811.
150. Divina commedia, Par. xv, 103-6: 'Non faceva, nascendo, ancor paura/la figlia al padre, ché 'l tempo e la dote/non fuggien quinci e quindi la misura'
151. Only the cases where both the date of the securitatis carta and the amount of the dowry are indicated are considered.
152. In the seventies there were sixteen cases of dowries of 1000 ducats and only four of £1000 ad grossos, while in the whole period considered £1000 ad grossos is the most frequent value for the nobles. The huge dowry increase for the noble marriages in the last nine years of Marino's activity is clearly apparent: there are only four cases and one of them is a 5700 ducats dowry, the highest value in the database. Also, the decrease of the dowry values of the commoner marriages celebrated in these last nine years does not mean a reversal of the trend, being possibly due only to the small number of cases.
153. On contemporary wages and prices, see R. C. Mueller, The Venetian Money Market: Banks, Panics and the Public Debt, 1200-1500, 2nd vol. of Money and Banking in Medieval and Renaissance Venice (Baltimore, MD, 1997), 647-64.
154. Chojnacki, 'La formazione';
155. Stat. flor. 1415, 2:129; 'et nulla mulier in dote, vel de dote vel de eius parte . . . possit condere ultimam voluntatem, nee aliquid etiam inter vivos quoquomodo disponere de dicta dote, vel eius parte in praciudicium viri, vel filiorum, seu aliorum discendentium ex eis'. Under the expression praeiudicium filiorum daughters too were understood, when there were no sons. In the other case, filii was interpreted as 'sons', not as 'children', Chabot, 'La loi du lignage', particularly 57.
156. Regarding the preference of sons in the last wills of Florentine mothers, see Chabot, 'Risorse e diritti patrimoniali', in A. Groppi (ed.), Lavoro dette donne (Roma and Bari, 1996), 47-70, particularly 68-9.
157. The formula reported always the point of view of the bridegroom: 'tempore eorum desponsationis ipse . . . recepit ab eapro dote et nomine dotis' ('at the time of their wedding he received from her as a dowry'). The husband being always the grammatical subject ('ipse recepit'), the person who gave him the dowry was mentioned in an object complement, for instance 'ab ea', for the bride.
158. Queller and Madden, 'Father of the bride', 46, 686-688.
159. Through the way they were named, we are better informed on professions and places of origin of the women who appeared in court as applicants for deceased wives or as witnesses than we are for the women whose dowries were adjudicated. Some of the applicants and witnesses were identified by their first names and surnames and not as somebody's wife or widow.
160. My sample of noble marriages is larger than that used by Chojnacki in his article 'La formazione della nobiltà dopo la Serrata', because I consider both dowry registers of Marino. On endogamy in the Venetian nobility in the fourteenth and fifteenth century, see Chojnacki, 'Marriage legislation'.
161. Marital status is indicated in the table as it is in the records: 'wife' means that the woman died married, i.e. she predeceased the husband; 'widow' means that the husband predeceased her.
162. However, Klapisch-Zuber has found that slightly more than the half of the marriages in the Florentine elite terminated with the death of the wife (60 out of 115). This usually happened before the wife had reached the end of her fertility - about forty-five years of age; see Klapisch-Zuber, 'La fécondité des Florentines'.
163. As entitlement, the applicants presented carte tutorie only twice, in the other cases it was stated that they were filii or filie familie.
164. In the case of testate death of the wife, other testamentary executors than the guardians of underage children could apply for the dowry.
165. Other applicants than the widows had to prove their entitlement: 'Verumtamen commissarius ostendet testamentum mulieris; fumitor autem testamentum et furnitionem; successor autem probabit successionem per duos testes ad minus, quod ipse solus est magis propinquus talis mulieris quam alius qui vivat.' Stat., nov., gloss to 'quoniam multociens', 48.
166. The procurators of S. Marco appeared in court either as commissarii or as furnitores of the testaments of deceased wives.
167. Stat. nov. 6:54.
168. Stat. nov. 4:27: 'quod tarn masculis quam feminis, virginibus, maritatis et viduis omnium mobilium et immobilium equalis successio deferatur'.
169. Catarina, born in the noble Marino family, who made her testament in 1323, had still to receive legacies from the estates of both her predeceased husbands. She wrote that 'quando extracta et recepta fuerint mea dimissoria de domo Mauroceno' and 'quando extracta et recepta fuerint mea dimissoria de domo Paradiso' - when her legacies from the house Morosini and from the house Paradiso would be taken and received, they should be used to pay the debts she owed to her brother. Her dimissoria could comprise both the dowry and bequests from the husbands. The fact that they had not been promptly paid may explain her debts to her brother. Archivo notarile, Testament!, busta 54, notary Nicolò of S. Agostino, prot., no. 129, 05.02.1323.
170. Chojnacki, 'Getting back the dowry', in Time, Space and Women's Lives, 83-4;
171. in Women and Men in Renaissance Venice, 100-1. See note 31.
172. Chojnacki, 'Getting back the dowry'. In the version published in Women and Men in Renaissance Venice, this statement has been changed slightly to: 'staying in their marital residence and delaying claiming their dowries for years or even decades', dropping 'after its conveyance to their husbands'.
173. Chojnacki, 'Riprendersi la dote', 467. See note 44. The statutes of other Italian towns did not allow the widow to apply for the dowry before one year had passed since the husband's death.
174. Stat. nov. 4:9. See note 23.
175. r, 12.09.1390).
176. Stat, nov., gloss to 'quoniam multociens', 48: 'nee refert quod illi testes sint masculi vel femine';
177. idem 51: 'per unum vel plures testes cuiuscumque sexus';
178. idem 52: 'quia in dotis et donacionibus propter nuptias datur ista prerogativa mulieri, ut possit probare etiam per pedissequam liberam'.
179. The issue dealt with in this gloss - that both men and women could be witnesses - was confirmed about a century later in the sixth book of the statutes (Stat. nov. 6:7).
180. Romolo Caggese (ed.), Statuti della repubblica fiorentina, II: Statuto del Podestà 1325 (Firenze, 1921), ch. 71.
181. Stat. nov. 1:24, gloss 148 to 'idonei', 59: 'prohibetur enim mulieres in causis nisi ad minus sit cum eis unius hominis testimonium, qui earum corroberet testimonium. Possunt autem plures femine vel una testificare in breviariis, que firmantur in testamentum; item in breviariis dimissionarum; item in breviariis repromisse, quod vocatur vadimonium.'
182. On the witnesses of women attesting oral last wills to convert them into valid testaments, see Stat. nov. 4:1, gloss 3 to 'si autem per breviarium'.
183. Giudici dell'Esaminatore, testificazioni, reg. 1, 1: ottobre 1383 - settembre 1384; 3: ottobre 1492 - ottobre 1403. On the curia examinatorum, see Glossary.
184. Paolo Zolli (ed.), Podestà di Torcello. Domenico Vigliari (1290-91) (Venezia, 1966) (Fonti per la storia di Venezia. Sez.1,4). This register covers the last years of the thirteenth century and is the oldest preserved dealing with penal cases before the podestà of Torcello. All cases refer to fights with or without insulting and injuring. Among the examined persons there were both defendants and witnesses, but no woman was among the defendants. The six women were witnesses in cases 4 and 21.
185. The statutes provided that fathers had to give their sons enough property to be able to return the dowry of their wives, when they emancipated them after they had themselves received the dowries of their daughters-in-law, i.e. their sons' wives. (Stat. nov. 1:58).
186. An indirect proof that widows must generally have been in possession of their dowries is that they had a larger role than wives in economic activities; see Guzzetti Venezianische Vermächtnisse, 119.
187. Claudia Opitz, 'Life in the late Middle Ages', in Georges Duby and Michelle Perrot (eds), A History of Women in the West, II: Silences of the Middle Ages, ed. C. Klapisch-Zuber (Cambridge, MA, 1991), 281.
188. Susanne Degenring, 'Die Frau die (wider-)spricht: Gelehrte Juristen über Frauen als Zeuginnen', Zeitschrifi der Savigny-Stiftung, 116 (1999), Kanonische Abteilung, 85, 203-24.
189. The scholarship on medieval Italy has taken account of these differences only in recent years; see Groppi, 'Introduzione', in Lavoro dette donne (Roma and Bari, 1996);
190. Roberto Greci, 'Donne e corporazioni: la fluiditàdi un rapporto', in Lavoro dette donne, 71-91;
191. Chabot, 'Risorse e diritti patrimoniali', 63-4;
192. Chabot and Giulia Calvi, 'Introduzione', in Ricehezze dette donne, 7-18, particularly 14.
193. The entitlement of the husband to the dowry, if the wife predeceased him, could be settled in marriage agreements (pacta de lucranda donationis et dotis), or it could be provided for in the statutes of the city (lucrum statutarium dotis); see Ercole, 'L'istituto dotale', 46, 194-9;
194. Kirshner, 'Maritus lucretur dotem';
195. Kirshner, 'Materials for a gilded cage'.
196. Besta, 'Il diritto e le leggi civili di Venezia', 2, 290-320;
197. Besta, 'Gli statuti civili di Venezia anteriori al 1244', 1, 42, 98.
198. Lamberto Pansolli, La gerarchia dette fonti di diritto nella legislazione medievale veneziana (Milano, 1970) (Fondazione Guglielmo Castelli, 41). See note 5.
199. Raimondo Morozzo della Rocca and Antonino Lombardo (eds), Documenti del commercio veneziano nei secoli XI-XIII (2 vols, Torino, 1940;
200. reprinted Torino, 1971), 1 (no. 1), 2-3 (no. 3), 39 (no. 37), passim.
201. Documenti del commercio veneziano nei secoli XI-XIII, 236-7 (no. 242), 338-9 (no. 342), 369-70 (no. 376), passim;
202. Maria Francesca Tiepolo (ed.), Domenico prete di S. Maurizio notaio di Venezia. 1309-1316 (Venezia, 1970) (Fonti per la storia di Venezia, Archivi notarili 5), 40 (no. 38), 144 (no. 186), 194 (no. 256), 340 (no. 517), passim.
203. Giorgio Cracco gives the following interpretation of Venetian social peace: 'tra il 1275 e il 1300 . . . all'intreccio di lotte tra le classi e gruppi politici [subentra] la dittatura di una classe sola, quella dei grandi mercanti', see Cracco, Società e stato nel medioevo veneziano (secoli XII-XIV) (Firenze, 1967) (Civiltà veneziana. Studi 22), 291.
204. For an opposite, positive judgement, see Frederic Chapin Lane, Venice. A Maritime Republic (Baltimore, MD, 1973), 109.
205. For a critical appraisal and a bibliography, see Romano, Particians and Popolani, 7-11, 151-8.