Little is known about the practice of “improvement,” a technical term anchored in the economy of the late Middle Ages.
By Dr. Gabriela Signori
Chair of Medieval History
Universität Konstanz
Introduction
Conceiving relationships between the sexes on the basis of equality is hardly a modern invention; it is an idea anchored in the medieval world of social representations and social practices. Focusing on these ideas and practices, this article argues that, contrary to popular belief, gender relations in European societies of the Middle Ages and the modern period were neither systematically — nor “naturally” — based on inequality. While the complexity of personal status, social stratifications, and regional situations makes it difficult to present a unified picture of the theories and practices that governed conjugal relationships in the medieval world, I would like to highlight how, in a certain number of cases, the Christian view of marriage fueled matrimonial practices that were relatively egalitarian. The legal arrangements that characterized the marriage relationship as a contractual system not only in Canon law but also in civil law opened up a space for negotiation in which gender was one criterion among others and the focus remained on achieving balance in the couple. Analysis of a contractual documentary corpus from the Rhine Valley, in which the legal organization of the matrimonial union was established not by marriage contract but by contract of succession with reciprocal dowries (not an isolated occurrence), shows that marriage — which is often viewed as the cornerstone of male domination in a traditional social order — could generate a gender configuration oriented towards equality in a wide variety of social backgrounds. Such a configuration has been too rarely highlighted. This article begins with a presentation of the ideological substratum elaborated by medieval philosophers and theologians in addition to the dissemination of these ideas through sermons on marital life in the late Middle Ages. The second part focuses on the social representations pertaining to equality within contractual matrimonial relationships, an equality that often determined the choice of the ideal companion at all social levels during the late Middle Ages. Evidence of this is found in the Basel and Strasbourg matrimonial contracts, which are examined in the final part of this article.
From Similitude to an Egalitarian Conception of Marriage
In his first Epistle to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 11 :7), Paul defines a hierarchical relationship between man and woman in the Christian community based on superiority and inferiority. At the top is God, who is superior to Christ. Christ is superior to all men. Lastly, the husband is superior to his wife. While man, as the glory of God, is built in His image (imago et gloria), woman is only the glory of man.1 Though Paul’s epistle has often been analyzed through the prism of Ambrosiaster’s commentary (late fourth century).2 Christians in the late fourth century did not unanimously believe that only man, and not woman, was made in God’s image. According to Augustine ( † 430), Genesis (1 :27) teaches that both man and woman were created in the image of God, in addition to being made of the same matter (Gen. 2 :23).3
According to Augustine, God created the first two human beings solely for reasons of “amicable sociability,”4 declaring : “It is not good that man should be alone (non est bonum hominem solum esse); I will make him a helper (adiutorium), comparable to him (similem sui)”5 (Gen. 2 :18). In the late fourteenth century, a translation in Ystoire sur Bible was very similar to the Vulgate (faisons lui ayde qui lui soit semblable),6 while the Calvinist Sébastien Castellion (1515-1563) introduced a relationship of ownership in his translation of simile sui : “Je lui ferai un’aide qui lui soit propre.”7 A similar semantic shift is found in the works of Luther (1483-1546).8 With the Reform, all translators of the Bible more or less radically banished from their translations the idea that man and woman could be identical or similar.
The various forms of equality between man and woman in the account of the Creation continued to be discussed. Through liturgical manuals and preachers’ manuals, this remained an important subject throughout the late Middle Ages both in didactic literature and sermons.9 The Dominican Master Ingold’s Guldin Spil — a kind of chess book (Schachzabelbuch) completed in 1432 and printed in 1472 at Günther Zainer’s printing shop in Augsburg — took up the idea that equality between the sexes was established in Heaven.10 In the Guldin Spil, the (chess) queen, who is the second orator discusses the bonds of marriage and begins her speech with the following biblical quotation : “Non est bonum hominem esse solum, faciamus ei adiutorium simile sibi. Genesis primo.” This is literally translated as : “In the account of Creation, God says, ‘It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper similar to him.’”11
Like many authors before and after him, Master Ingold insisted on the fact that woman was created not from man’s head or feet, but from his “side” (seitten), which lies close to his heart.12 If the head symbolizes domination and the feet symbolize subordination, he contended, the side symbolizes equality between the sexes.13 It is because of this notion of equality that Eve was associated with Adam. For Master Ingold, equality was a byproduct of love and love a byproduct of equality : “Wann gleicheit ist ein sach der lieb und lieb ist ein sach der geleicheit.”14 He concluded that love renders all things equal. In his view, inequality between man and woman depended on the “person” — or, as one would say today, on the different (social) roles played by men and women, such as the various types of activities exercised both inside and outside the home, women’s inability to hold a political office or the differing degree of piety between the sexes. Indeed, Master Ingold was convinced that women were more pious than men.
While Master Ingold viewed inequality between man and woman as a cultural artifice, according to him and other medieval theologians, equality was rooted in the very nature of human beings : men and women were equal because of their “human nature and behavior” and were also equal under the sacraments.15 He contended that man and woman had equal rights over each other’s body (debitum conjugale)16; between them, equality extended to their children and the love they mutually owed each other, which united them in marriage.17 In his Gulden Spil, Master Ingold postulated the necessity of equal wealth between husband and wife (gleich reich seyn an dem g?t), contending that the bond of marriage created a community of property (ir g?t gemain.)18 The Dominican was imperceptibly shifting from the field of ethics to economics in order to defend the widespread idea that marriage as an institution based on unequal socio-economic foundations created nothing but trouble. In his sermon on marriage, the Franciscan Berthold von Regensburg ( † 1272) had already warned the reader of the potential unhappiness that could arise from marriages between a bride and a groom with unequal wealth.19 The ancient model of an “unequal couple” that was mismatched but established for financial reasons and the subject of literary and iconographic caricatures was supposed to act as a foil to this.20
In the didactic literature on marriage produced during the late Middle Ages, egalitarian representations abound.21 These authors praised marriage as an institution made in Heaven. Because of its heavenly and divine origins, they ranked marriage above all other institutions imagined and put in place by man.22 It is noteworthy that they considered the equality between man and woman as based on human nature and not on culture. Equality was therefore not an artificial convention : it was a gift from God.
From Social Representation to Social Practice
Master Ingold’s postulate that spouses should preferably have equal wealth was not an ideal unrelated to social reality. In the late Middle Ages, endogamy was the dominant factor in most matrimonial relations, as was the case, for example, in the German high nobility or the wealthy Florentine communities of the fifteenth century.23 No comparable studies for medieval urban societies in Germany are currently available. Uneven documentary density cannot be the only explanation for this historiographical imbalance.
In southern Europe — including the south of France — the bride could benefit from a more or less generous dowry depending on the circumstances. But in northern Europe, beyond regional and social differences, the prevailing practice was an exchange of property based on reciprocity.24 This exchange included a dowry (Dos), also called “marriage tax,” in addition to a counter-dowry (Widerlegung) and/or a “morning gift” (Morgengabe, or gift from husband to wife after the wedding night).25 The “marriage tax” formed the economic foundation of the matrimonial community. In general, the counter-dowry was supposed to act as an economic insurance policy in the case of widowhood, like the dower, which was especially common among the noble classes. The recipients could, after a will was drafted, freely dispose of the morning gift that the bride (or previously single husband who married a widow) received the morning after the wedding.26 Regarding the dowry, it was often impossible to modify or relinquish it (this ban applied to both sexes), while real property was typically reserved for the heirs (Verfangenschaftsgut).
Cities like Augsburg, Basel, Lübeck or Nuremberg did not produce any documentary series like the one available for the Florentine Monte degli dotti. In the northern Alps, documentation appears to be fragmentary and socially exclusive. Furthermore, it is limited to certain types of contracts, which rarely concern matrimonial property as a whole : as with the establishment of a dowry, only a specific part of the property is documented therein. Up until the late sixteenth century, marriage contracts, even those contracted in the city, were preferably verbal agreements in the form of “matrimonial negotations” before several witnesses (often seven), who were referred to as “contract witnesses” (Gedingsleuten).27 A contract was put in writing only when either geographical or social distances had to be overcome28 or dissent persisted between the contracting parties.29 A written contract, however, did not create an obligation. In many cases, only spouses who granted each other certain benefits (generally at a later or more advanced stage in their lives) were required by the authorities to draft a written contract, similar to the institution in Douai known as the ravestissement par lettres (mutual donation by letters). This practice has been studied under two different angles by Robert Jacob and Martha Howell.30
Written marriage contracts abided by relatively simple rules : social distance (hypo- or hypergamy) was reflected in asymmetrical provisions and social proximity (endogamy) in symmetrical provisions. Asymmetry and social distance will first be discussed here before returning to the symmetry highlighted in these studies. Mutual gifts called Widem, recorded in the first Livre de la Chambre des contrats in Strasbourg, will also be discussed.31 Here, the issue was neither symmetry nor asymmetry, but reciprocity : men and women did not act separately, but as a couple.
Asymmetry
On October 8, 1448, in the Imperial City of Basel, three important members of the bourgeoisie — longtime city-council member Konrad von Laufen ( † 1478), Henmann Offenburg ( † 1459), and Hans Waltenheim ( † 1470) — met to put in writing what for the most part had already been decided for some time. Indeed, both families had previously made a verbal agreement regarding the contents of the contract.32 A charter was drafted “for added security” so that the concerned parties could affix their seals to it, as if it were a treaty between states. A copy of the contract was given to both spouses,33 but only the bride’s copy — that of Adelheid von Laufen ( † 1482), who was from a noble family — was kept at the Staatsarchiv Basel-Stadt.34 By affixing their seals to the document, the witnesses and the couple’s next of kin confirmed that they had been present during the negotiations and that everything had happened as stipulated in the charter.
In order to certify this charter, we, Konrad von Laufen, Hans Waltenheim the Elder, and Henmann Offenburg, knight, have affixed our seals to it. And for added security, each of us, I, Konrad von Laufen, together with my cousins, brothers Hans and Dietrich Surlin, with my dear brother Hans von Laufen, as well as with Peter Offenburg and Jakob Waltenheim, we have, in all honor and all wisdom, affixed our seals to this letter to certify its full content. We, the above-mentioned brothers Hans and Dietrich Surlin, Hans von Laufen, Werner Ehrenmann, Peter Offenburg, and Jakob Waltenheim, hereby officially confirm and declare in this letter that everything written herein took place according to our full understanding and will, and that we have witnessed the negotiations leading to this holy marriage. That is why, upon the request from Konrad von Laufen, Hans Waltenheim, and Sire Henmann Offenburg, knight, we affix our seals to this charter.35
The parties reached the following agreement : Hans Waltenheim would give his son Hans, the groom, a dowry of 3,500 florins (Ehesteuer); Knight Henmann Offenburg, the groom’s maternal grandfather, would add 1,000 florins; and Waltenheim the father promised Konrad’s daughter Adelheid a morning gift of 500 florins. Never before had a bride from Basel received such a large sum of money for a Morgengabe.36 As with the dowry, Waltenheim planned to invest this money in rental properties. Should Hans die before his wife Adelheid, she would receive 1,000 florins as dower from her husband’s family. Should Adelheid die before Hans, the bride’s parents were to receive the 600 florins that the bride’s aunt Ursula von Hallwil ( † 1452) planned to give her niece as a wedding present. Hans and his heirs would have no right to this money, which was the bride’s exclusive property. In this case, the separation of marital property was strictly followed on all levels. Finally, Konrad von Laufen promised his daughter a trousseau “composed of dresses, clothing, and the usual necessities, befitting a young woman of her rank and thereby doing my wife and I honor, and fulfilling my daughter Adelheid’s needs.”37 In addition to the money from her aunt, clothing befitting her social status was all the bride brought to the marriage. Adelheid’s capital was symbolic, offering the privilege of belonging to the von Laufen lineage — the word Stamm (line) is used —, or, in other words, the privilege of having noble ancestry. Because of her noble birth, Adelheid would later have to accept the anticipated distribution of the estate in favor of her brother, who was the only male heir in the von Laufen family.38 In terms of money, the contract between the von Laufens’ noble lineage and a rich merchant family active in banking and credit was clearly asymmetrical. However, this imbalance was logical in terms of social climbing, a phenomenon known as hypogamy in modern historiography.39 Hans Waltenheim enjoyed the benefits of his social climbing for only fifteen years. In 1462, he died after being injured in a tournament.40 His only daughter Margaretha died approximately ten years later. Jakob Waltenheim, her father’s brother and the only man left who could have perpetuated the family name, inexplicably preferred to remain single.41 He maintained a lifelong friendship with his nephew’s widow and died five years after Adelheid in 1487 at the age of 77.
Women like Adelheid undoubtedly endowed their husbands with additional prestige and social connections. Their most precious capital, however, was their capacity to “improve” their husbands and to ennoble them, allowing them access to social activities exclusively reserved for urban nobility. Ironically, marriage to Adelheid von Laufen was what enabled Hans Waltenheim to participate in the very tournament that caused his untimely death.42 The capacity for social improvement (melioratio) that women offered was rewarded with huge sums of money, considerable dowers specified in marriage contracts and matrimonial negotiations. It was also publicly recognized with generous wedding gifts, of which everyone knew the amount.43
Little is known about the practice of “improvement,” a technical term anchored in the economy of the late Middle Ages. Researchers and scholars generally assume that men, not women, transmitted social status.44 However, this is not a valid assumption for medieval northern Europe. In Basel, Ulm, and Nuremberg, in addition to a number of other cities on both sides of the Alps, it was women who ennobled their husbands and not the other way around. The Traité sur la ville d’Ulm (Treaty on the City of Ulm) leaves no room for doubt about this. In his chapter on the lineage of the Low family, the Dominican Felix Fabri ( † 1502), author of the treaty, comments on this widespread practice, which was seldom explained.
There were several noble marriages in the Low family, who maintained that their line (stirpen) descended from ancient nobility. Because of this family, many other bourgeois families (familiae civium) were improved (melioratae) and continue to take pride in their high nobility. More recently, the valiant Johannes von Clam came to Ulm and married Elisabeth, daughter of the esteemed Georius Lew. She bore him four daughters, Ursula, Magdalena, Felicitas and Susanna, all of whom married bourgeois men, whose families were in turn ennobled (familias nobilitaverunt). The eldest daughter improved (efficit meliores) the Kraft and Ehinger families; the second daughter, the Ungelters; the third, the Geßlers; and the fourth, the Rot family.45 The eldest daughter was married twice, and she is still living with her second husband today. The second daughter paid her debt to nature, and so did her husband [they are both dead]. The third is still married today. As for the fourth, and youngest, after being abandoned by her husband, she chose to enjoy a better, more spiritual life,46 and she refused a second marriage to embrace widowhood (vidualem statum professa).47 Today, she is serving God’s most sacred functions, and she has become a model of life and virtue for virgins, married women, and widows.48
What Felix Fabri had observed in the case of Ulm was analagous to many cities on both sides of the Alps. Noble women everywhere were “improving” their husbands,49 who then gained access to places and social activities reserved for urban nobility.50 Their capacity for improvement meant that such women were extremely sought-after by families seeking a higher social status.
Symmetry
Although hypogamy was a widespread phenomenon across Europe well beyond the Middle Ages, it was always an exception to the rule, albeit an exception that occurred rather frequently. The bourgeoisie generally favored symmetrical matrimonial unions.51 The marriage contract between Hans Boltzen of Lüneburg and Herdeke Pleskow of Lübeck, which was signed on October 18, 1407, perfectly illustrates this.52 At the beginning of the fifteenth century, the Boltzen and Pleskow families both belonged to the political and economic elite of their respective cities. According to the political vocabulary of the time, they both shared the same social status. This equality had to be strictly respected at every level in the contract. To avoid favoring the merchant city of Lübeck over the salt metropolis of Lüneburg (and vice versa), negotiations took place on neutral ground in the city of Mölln (Lower Saxony), which was equidistant from both cities.53 Since the bride and groom’s parents were already deceased, the contract was negotiated by the closest male relatives along with notable city councilors and burgomasters from both Hanseatic cities.54 They began by determining Herdeke’s dowry : income from two rented properties in Lübeck and Wismar amounting to 1,000 marks55 and clothing, including a new red ermine fur coat.56
The fur coat reveals the importance of self-representation among the Lübeck elite in the early fifteenth century. The bridegroom brought revenues of 50 marks (with a 1,000-mark capital) as a counter-dowry, which was called a morning gift.57 In case of his premature death, Herdeke would receive this revenue. The amount of the counter-dowry was perfectly equal to Herdeke’s dowry. Should the couple later have children, the order of succession would be established according to Lüneburg law.58 On the wedding day, the marriage bed was to be brought from Lübeck to Lüneburg at Herdeke’s expense. The marriage contract was drafted in two original copies on a single sheet of paper, like a chirograph. Each sheet was then divided in two halves, which were given to the four witnesses (Gedingsleuten) present for the negotiations.59 In this case, putting things in writing allowed the marriage to overcome the geographical and not the social distance.60
Symmetry and Reciprocity
As stated earlier, most “marriage contracts” were not marriage contracts stricto sensu, but more often mutual gifts. The terminology varied from one city to another : ravestissement par lettre (mutual donation by letter) in Douai, Widem or Mächtnis in southern Germany. At that time, the applicable legal framework generally ranked this type of contract under laws of succession and not under matrimonial law.61 These contracts always had the same objective : protecting the surviving member of the couple, husband or wife, from having to share the inheritance with the family of the deceased members. In other words, this was very much like a reciprocal life-insurance agreement.62
In Basel, the mutual gift restricted to acquests was called Mächtnis (from the verb vermachen, “to bequeath”). Under urban law, it explicitly excluded actual property, which was strictly reserved for legitimate heirs.63 In addition, spouses were not to have any children or parents.64 One could circumvent this ban by obtaining the agreement of either the children from a first marriage or one’s parents, or both. Recording these morning gifts (at one’s own expense) in the Fertigungsbuch, the book of the court of justice, was mandatory and had to be renewed annually.65 In Basel, as stated earlier, spouses were not allowed to freely dispose of their property, which was “frozen” in favor of the heirs. At best, spouses could retain life usufruct of the property they had acquired together through a Widem (meaning “to devote”). As for the rest, the same conditions applied to both the Widem and the Mächtnis. Unlike movable property, real estate could not be bequeathed between spouses and could only be “given” as life usufruct.66 In the case of the Widem in Strasbourg, husbands and wives mutually reserved the right of life usufruct on the dowry of the spouse who died first.67 In the Strasbourg and Basel crafts sectors, this often consisted of a jointly purchased immovable property, thus excluding dotal property.
Spouses in Douai, Basel or Strasbourg regularly made use of this possibility of granting each other mutual benefits. Between 1228 and 1373 in Douai, the ravestissements par lettres represented 86 % of all documents related to matrimonial affairs.68 As Howell observed, the number continued to climb after 1400, compared with other types of contracts, even though the rate of growth was not as high as before. The situation was identical in Basel. Between 1450 and 1500, 1,816 mutual gifts (Mächtnis) were publicly established before the magistrates’ court, making this the second largest group of contracts registered in the Fertigungsbuch after interest sales and property sales.69 In reality, 80 % of these Mächtnis concerned couples who had more or less regularly reiterated their commitment to each other over the course of several years, and sometimes even thirty years in a row. Aside from these cases of successive confirmation, over the course of fifty years, 589 couples from all social backgrounds set up mutual benefits. This remarkably high figure highlights the importance of reciprocal life-insurance agreements for couples of all social classes.
As stated earlier, the Strasbourg Widem was limited to matrimonial property. According to the sixth urban law of Strasbourg of 1322, Widem or Wittumsstiftungen only concerned property that was the object of matrimonial negotiations (zu der brunlouff berett und g[e]lobt).70 It was strictly forbidden to modify or relinquish (und ist darumb nit verendert) this property.71 Strasbourg urban law distinguished between dotal property outside the city and dotal property within the city as well as between property that could be “bought back” and property carrying heavy interests, or a laudimium (or laudemium), based on emphyteutic law.72 On April 21, 1334, a fisherman named Walter — also known as Retwin — bequeathed to his wife two-thirds of their house and courtyard in the Krutenau, and “in return, Hedwig bequeathed her third to her husband.”73 In the case of an emphyteutic concession, it was necessary to obtain the agreement of the dominus directus, or landlord, before proceeding with the Widem.74 On March 4, 1338, notary Master Hugo gave his wife Agnes his two-thirds share of their house (and courtyard) near the Chapelle Sainte-Croix as a dotal property, et Agnes Hugoni marito terciam suam partem.75 Dominus directus Johannes — also known as Wagener — rector of the Rotenkirche parochial church (Rotenkirche was a small village near Strasbourg that no longer exists) agreed to the deal and confirmed at the end of the contract that he had received the laudemium, or Emphyteutic Canon.76
In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the majority of Widem were drafted before the episcopal court (thirty-eight out of sixty). The patriciate — in other words, the city’s nobility — preferred to register its contracts at the magistrates’ court (ten contracts). In this particular court, German was quickly adopted for written texts, while ecclesiastical courts continued using Latin.77 On March 20, 1377, Heinrich Lentzelin bequeathed to his wife Elisabeth 200 silver marks “as a Widem.”78 The contract specified that Elisabeth was the daughter of Johann Ellenhard and the late Dina Ganserin. The onomastic practice revealed here coincides with a separation of property, which was common amongst the Strasbourg nobility.79 These 200 silver marks (400 Strasbourg pounds) included the following goods and property (within and out of town) : an income of fifty-three quarts of rye and barley in Matzenheim (a village near Sélestat), the improvement (melioratio) of four pounds of rent on the house and parcel called zum Martinsvogel (located in the Rinckendorfgasse, next to Œuvre Notre-Dame), a rent of three pounds out of five from the improvement of the house and parcel called zum Ribenacker (located under the Tuchlaube, in front of the cathedral), and rent of five pounds from the customs duty held by Simon von Lichtenberg in Ingwiller (a district of Saverne). With her father’s “acknowledgement and consent,” Elisabeth bequeathed to her husband the following property “of equal value” : an income of ten pounds from the Strasbourg episcopal customs, six pounds from the house and parcel called zum Rebstock (located in the Holweg), and six and a half pounds from the house and parcel called zum Jagdhorn, near Porte des Bouchers. In the event of a legal separation, the following is specified : “Each spouse retrieves the property given to the other spouse, who has the right to usufruct of this property without opposition from the other spouse, until they resume living together.”80 Evidently, people anticipated all possible outcomes of marriage, even divorce. During matrimonial negotations (z?der brunloff), each party also agreed (according to urban law) that “property should always be and remain unchanged for both parties” (doch z?beiden siten alle wegent ein unverandert g?t bliben und sin súllent).81
In the contract between Heinrich von Saarburg and Greda von D?menheim signed on September 19, 1337, the house called Ortenberg, on the Kurbengasse figures prominently on their list of matrimonial property.82 However, Heinrich could only freely dispose of two-thirds of the house. The remaining third, which had been owned by his first wife Klara, now belonged to his daughter Dina (short for Katherina). As the domina directa (landlady) of the house, Agnes, the wife of burgomaster Berchtold Schwaber, agreed to the contract. A year later, Dina married a patrician from Strasbourg, Johannes zur Megede.83 The total value of the dowry was 250 silver marks (150 from the husband, 100 from his wife). The property brought by Dina came from her share of the inheritance and from the maternal dowry. This included the aforementioned third of the Ortenberg house, where Heinrich was now living with his second wife. Dina and her husband had to solemnly promise her father that he could live in the house for the rest of his life. Agnes intervened as the domina directa, consenting to the contract and receiving the laudemium.
Thirty years later, Johannes zur Megede’s son Konrad sought to have his marriage contract with Bertha certified by the magistrates’ court. Bertha was the daughter of the late Heinzmann Wetzel.84 In their case, dotal property amounted to 400 and 200 silver marks, more than twice the value of his parents’ dotal property and which included the zur Megede house on the Schmiedengasse.85 An exchange between Johannes and his sister Klara (widow of the patrician Peter Voltsche), presided over by the ecclesiastical court five days later, revealed that Johannes’s son did not have full ownership of the house.86 Klara had income from one quarter of the zur Megede property.87 According to the exchange, this income had to be bought back and reinvested elsewhere. Eight years later, Konrad returned to see the judge at the ecclesiastical court in order to bilaterally increase the dotal property (augmentum dotis).88 The investment under discussion in this case also consisted of annuities and interest (redditus et census), the origin and history of which were accurately documented : the annuity of thirty solidus had been purchased by grandfather Heinrich von Saarburg and the two-pound interest came from Konrad’s father Johannes zur Megede. Konrad and his wife were living in the small zur Megede house next to the main house inhabited by his father’s two brothers. Konrad owned one quarter each of both buildings plus an additional eighth. Thus, the two houses were not hereditary property, agnatically transmitted from father to son, but a dotal property shared between the children. Over time this situation had generated extremely complex ownership relationships.89 Each property brought to the contract by the spouse during matrimonial negotiations had its own history, which these contracts transmitted from generation to generation.90
In the early fifteenth century, the Council of Strasbourg decided to create a specific judicial register for ravestissements par lettres (mutual donations by letters). Today, this register is archived under the category “Chambre des contrats” at the Archives Municipales de Strasbourg.91 On the leather binding, a contemporary clerk has written this title : Alt widemen. Indeed, the 204 folios of this first book of contracts is almost entirely comprised of Widem (sixty-three in total) dating between 1398 and 1478.92 The numerous questions written in the body of the text and the margins seem to indicate that contracts were drafted with the utmost care. These documents, however, do not contain minutes, but are instead the legally certified result of a previous matrimonial negotiation. The contract was first recorded in the register (sometimes filling several folios) before being transformed into a notarized instrument. Two original copies were usually established, one for the bride and one for the groom, as stipulated at the end of the contract.93 Sometimes texts explicitly referred back to preliminary matrimonial negotiations (z?brunlufft beredt) in order to reinforce the absolute necessity that the specified dotal property be both immutable and non-disposable.94 Johann von Rathsamhausen made the following solemn promise :
I, Johannes von Rathsamhausen, declare that the aforementioned matrimonial negotiations went as planned. On that occasion, I solemnly and faithfully promised to never derogate from the agreement signed between the parties. To certify this agreement, I affixed my seal to this letter, in the presence of the following magistrates : Sire Thomas von Endingen, knight; Sire Wilhelm Knobloch, knight; Ulrich Gosse, Altammeister (master of city offices); and Reinbolt Hiltebrand von Mulnheim.95
Nearly all the contracts recorded in the Alt Widem book come from the restricted circle of consular lineage.96 Exclusive recourse to the magistrates’ court was a trend that had already begun in the fourteenth century.97 The same well-known names appear among the fifteenth-century contracts in Strasbourg : von Mulnheim (thirteen contracts), Zorn (eleven), Manse (eight), Huffelin (five), Knobloch, von Grostein, Gurteler and Rebstock (four), and Barpfennig, Baumann, von Kageneck, Panphile, Rosheim and zum Trubel (three). As was already the case for acts signed in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, husbands and wives were presented as sons and daughters of their respective fathers.
I, Johannes von Wickersheim, master and councilor of the city of Strasbourg, hereby declare to all who read this letter, etc. that Reinbolt Baumann, local bourgeois, has given, as Widem, the following amount of money and property, listed below, to Lady Ottilia von Kageneck, daughter of Anselm von Kageneck and Susanna.98
The contracts are strictly symmetrical, both in terms of form and content. In this context, symmetry reflected social equality (endogamy) between contracting parties. This frequently (60 % of cases, or thirty-seven cases out of sixty-three) meant that the amounts bequeathed by spouses to each other were perfectly equal : in decreasing order, seventeen times 300 silver marks (600 pounds in Strasbourg deniers), nine times 400 marks, five times 250 marks, and three times 350 marks. As for asymmetrical Widem, amounts oscillated between 300 and 400 silver marks (600-800 Strasbourg deniers), confirming the socially exclusive feature of these recorded contracts.
In addition, asymmetrical Widem in Strasbourg were, financially-speaking, generally more favorable to women (twenty-two of the twenty-six contracts), since most of the time they brought less property to the marriage than their husbands. The aforementioned noblemen Heinrich von Landsberg and Hartmann von Rathsamhausen were among the four documented exceptions.99 Otherwise, in Strasbourg and elsewhere, marriages preferably took place between spouses from similar social backgrounds. Those placed in the “yoke of marriage” preferably belonged to the same economic class.100
These investigations suggest that equality between the sexes was key in matrimonial practices during the late Middle Ages, not only theoretically but also with regard to social practice. Indeed, a brief survey of several doctrinal aspects of male/female relationships shows that the notion of equality was a theoretical possibility that existed in medieval theology, even if this has not been sufficiently stressed. Mediated by predicators or moral literature, this vision was realized and articulated in concrete marital practices, the organization of which was conceived from a legal point of view. Endogamy must undoubtedly be taken into consideration, as it was a dominant factor in Europe at the end of the Middle Ages and directly linked to this egalitarian perspective. In the documentary research done in the Rhineland cities presented here, even the study of socially asymmetrical couples shows how different forms of economic, social, and symbolic capital circulated between spouses within a legal framework in order to establish an equilibrium between spouses. Gender relations thus became the cornerstone of family strategies, and the dynamic of this strategy favored equality over inequality. In cases of social symmetry, the various forms of reciprocity established by the succession contracts calling for mutual gifts between husband and wife also aimed at creating an equilibrium within the matrimonial relationship, which was itself counterbalanced between familial and social groups.
These various elements do not efface the geographical and documentary limitations of this investigation or the existence of other forms of gender domination — actual or symbolic — within European medieval societies. Nonetheless, these results tend to highlight the notion of equality. This notion still needs to find its place within current historiography, which tends to imagine the medieval world as dominated by inequality and consequently views male/female relationships as involving domination, without taking into account sociological or legal considerations.101 According to Aristotle (Politics 1.2.1252b), only the Barbarians treated their wives as serfs instead of companions. Nicole Oresme ( † 1382) pointed this out and, in her famous translation, took up certain ideas inherited from the medieval exegesis of Genesis, which was noted at the beginning of this paper :
He who treats his wife as his serf or his bitch insults her, since, as stated in the first chapter of Politics, there is a big difference between a serf and a woman. But the Barbarians have established an order between woman and serf. And that is bad. In the Holy Scriptures, and also according to Aristotle, women are companions, not serfs.102
Endotes
- For the historical context, see : Antoinette Clark Wire, The Corinthian Women Prophets : A Reconstruction Through Paul’s Rhetoric (Minneapolis : Fortress Press, 1990), 116-34; Ross Shepard Kraemer, Her Share of the Blessings : Women’s Religions Among Pagans, Jews, and Christians in the Greco-Roman World (Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1992), 128-56; and Margaret Y. MacDonald, Early Christian Women and Pagan Opinion : The Power of the Hysterical Woman (Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1996), 144-54. For the medieval exegesis of the First Letter to the Corinthians, see Gabriela Signori, Räume, Gesten, Andachtsformen. Geschlecht, Konflikt und religiöse Kultur im europäischen Spätmittelalter (Ostfildern : Thorbecke, 2005), 96-113.
- “Quamvis una substantia sit {et} vir et mulier, tamen, quia vir caput mulieris est, anteponendus traditur, ut per causam et rationem maior sit, non per substantiam. Inferior ergo mulier viro est, portio enim eius est, quia origo mulieris vir est; ex eo enim est ac per hoc obnoxia videtur mulier viro, ut imperio eius subiecta sit.” Ambrosiastri qui dicitur commentarius in epistulas Paulinas. Pars secunda in epistulas ad Corinthos, ed. Heinrich Joseph Vogel (Vienna : Hoelder/Pichler/Tempsky, 1968), 121. Wilhelm Geerlings, “Der Ambrosiaster. Ein Pauluskommentator des vierten Jahrhunderts”, in Der Kommentar in Antike und Mittelalter, eds. Wilhelm Geerlings and Christian Schulze (Boston : Brill, 2004), 213-23. For a detailed study of 1 Cor. 11 :7, see David G. Hunter, “The Paradise of Patriarchy : Ambrosiaster on Woman as (Not) God’s Image,” The Journal of Theological Studies, n.s. 43-2 (1992) : 447-69.
- “Sed uidendum est quomodo non sit contrarium quod dicit apostolus non mulierem sed uirum esse imaginem dei huic quod scriptum est in genesi : fecit deus hominem ad imaginem dei : fecit eum masculum et feminam; fecit eos et benedixit eos. ad imaginem quippe dei naturam ipsam humanam factam dicit quae sexu utroque completur, nec ab intellegenda imagine dei separat feminam.” Augustine, De Trinitate, libri XV, Aureli Augustini Opera, ed. W. J. Mountain (Turnhout : Brepols, 1968), vols. 16-1, libs. 12, cap. 7, linea 7. See Antoon A. Bastiaensen, “Augustine’s Pauline Exegesis and Ambrosiaster,” in Augustine : Biblical Exegete, eds. Frederick van Fleteren and Joseph C. Schnaubelt (New York : Peter Lang, 2001), 32-54; Pamela Bright, “Biblical Ambiguity in African Exegesis,” in De doctrina Christiana : A Classic of Western Culture, eds. Duane W. Arnold and Pamela Bright ((Notre Dame : University of Notre Dame Press, 1994), 24-32.
- Augustine, De bono coniugali, in Sancti Aurelii Augustini, ed. Joseph Zycha (Vienna : G. Gerold, 1900), 185-231; Augustine, De bono coniugali/De sancta uirginitate, ed. and trans. Patrick G. Walsh (Oxford : Clarendon Press, 2001), 1-63; Émile Schmitt, Le mariage chrétien dans l’œuvre de saint Augustin. Une théologie baptismale de la vie conjugale (Paris : Études augustiniennes, 1983); Elizabeth A. Clark, “‘Adam’s Only Companion’ : Augustine and the Early Christian Debate on Marriage,” in The Olde Daunce : Love, Friendship, Sex and Marriage in the Medieval World, eds. Robert R. Edwards and Stephen Spector (Albany : State University of New York Press, 1991), 15-31 and 240-54; Henri Crouzel, Mariage et divorce, célibat et caractère sacerdotaux dans l’Église ancienne. Études diverses (Turin : Bottega d’Erasmo, 1982); David G. Hunter, “Augustinian Pessimism ? A New Look at Augustine’s Teaching on Sex, Marriage and Celibacy,” Augustinian Studies 25 (1994) : 153-77; Philip Lyndon Reynolds, Marriage in the Western Church : The Christianization of Marriage During the Patristic and Early Medieval Periods (New York : E. J. Brill, 1994), 241-311; and Perry J. Cahall, “The Trinitarian Structure of St. Augustine’s Good of Marriage,” Augustinian Studies 34 (2003) : 223-323.
- Jérôme Baschet, “Ève n’est jamais née. Les représentations médiévales et l’origine du genre humain,” in Ève et Pandora : la création de la première femme, éd. Jean-Claude Schmitt (Paris : Gallimard, 2001), 115-62. See also Emmanuel Bain, “‘Homme et femme il les créa’ (Gen. 1, 27). Le genre féminin dans les commentaires de la Genèse au XIIe siècle,” Studi medievali 1 (2007) : 229-70.
- According to Le ménagier de Paris I :v, eds. Georgina E. Brereton and Janet M. Ferrier (Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1981), 57. Bible translation by Pierre le Mangeur ( † 1179) : La Bible en français historiée, printed in 1498-1499, Rés. A. 270, fol. VIIIra, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.
- Sébastien Castellion, La Genèse, 1555, eds. Jacques Chaurand et al. (Geneva : Droz, 2003), 140.
- Martin Luther, Die Deutsche Bibel (1522-1546), vol. 8, Die Übersetzung des Ersten Teils des Alten Testaments (Die 5 Bücher Mose) (Weimar : Böhlau, 1954), 42. Ulrike Hörauf-Erfle, Wesen und Rolle der Frau in der moralisch-didaktischen Literatur des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts im Heiligen Römischen Reich deutscher Nation (Frankfurt : Peter Lang, 1991), 130-49; Alexandra Lutz, Ehepaare vor Gericht. Konflikte und Lebenswelten in der Frühen Neuzeit (Frankfurt am Main : Campus Verlag, 2006), 147-60.
- For additional information, see Gabriela Signori, Von der Paradiesehe zur Gütergemeinschaft (Frankfurt : Campus Verlag, 2011).
- Master Ingold, Hie hebt sich das b?ch an. das man nent daz guldin spil (Augsburg : G. Zainer, 1472; Digitale Sammlung der Bayerischen Landesbibliothek München); Master Ingold, Das Goldene Spiel von Meister Ingold, ed. Edward Schröder (Strasbourg : Trübner, 1882); and Rüdiger Schnell, “Was haben Schachspiel und Ehe gemeinsam ? Zum Goldenen Spiel des Basler Dominikaners Meister Ingold (1432)”, in Begegnungen mit dem Mittelalter in Basel. Eine Vortragsreihe zur mediävistischen Forschung, ed. Simona Slani?ka (Basel : Schwabe, 2000), 90-121.
- “Non est bonum hominem esse solum, faciamus ei adiutorium simile sibi. Genesis primo. Es spricht got in dem b?ch der geschoepff. Es ist nit g?t, dz der mensch allain sey. Wir süllen im machen eyn hilf sein geleich.” Master Ingold, Hie hebt sich das b?ch an., 20-21. Jacques de Vitry ( † 1240) had already put these same words in the incipit of his first Sermon for Married Persons (Sermon aux gens mariés), a text that was widely disseminated in the fifteenth century. See : ms. Paris BNF lat. 17 509, fol. 135ra-137va, cited in Rüdiger Schnell, “Die Frau als Gefährtin (socia) des Mannes. Eine Studie zur Interdependenz von Textsorte, Adressat und Aussage,” in Geschlechterbeziehungen und Textfunktionen. Studien zu Eheschriften der Frühen Neuzeit, ed. Rüdige Schnell (Tübingen : Schwabe, 1998), 144; ms. 347, fol. 63vb-70rb, Bibliothèque universitaire de Liège, cited in Carolyn Muessig, The Faces of Women in the Sermons of Jacques de Vitry : Commentary, Editions & Translations (Toronto : Peregrina, 1999), 19-20 and 151.
- “Da macht er sye nit anß [sic] Adams houbt / noch auß den fuessen / er macht sye aber auß den seitten nach bey dem herczen / darumb das die frow nit waer ob dem man / ob sy ouch nit gesundet het so waer sy gestanden in gleicheit z?dem man / Sye solt ouch nit vnder im sein als ein f?sz t?ch / aber in gleicheit.” Master Ingold, Das Goldene Spiel, 21.
- Hugues de Saint-Victor, De sacramentis, I, 35, in Patrologie Latine, 176, col. 284. The same wording is found in Pierre Lombard, Sententiarum libri quatuor, II, 18 (Grottaferrata : Collegii S. Bonaventurae ad Claras Aquas, 1971), 1 :416-21 (Patrologie Latine, 192, cols. 687-88), which on this point closely follows closely the Victorins. See Hans Zeimentz, Ehe nach der Lehre der Frühscholastik (Düsseldorf : Patmos-Verlag, 1973), 90-93.
- Master Ingold, Das Goldene Spiel, 21.
- One finds similar wording in Marbode de Rennes, De muliere bona, in Liber decem capitulorum IV, ed. Rosario Leotta (Rome : Herder, 1984), 113-14. On Marbode, see Christine Ratkowitsch, “Der Liber decem capitulorum des Marbod von Rennes : ein simplex et unum (Teil 1),” Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 32-2 (1999) : 85-117.
- Elizabeth M. Makowski, “The Conjugal Debt and Medieval Canon Law”, in Equally in God’s Image : Women in the Middle Ages, eds. Julia Bolton Holloway et al. (New York : Peter Lang, 1990), 129-43; Rüdiger Schnell, Sexualität und Emotionalität in der vormodernen Ehe (Cologne : Böhlau, 2002), 292-305.
- Peter Leisching, “Über Liebe und Ehe im Mittelalter,” Innsbrucker historische Studien 12/13 (1990) : 371-78; Erik Kooper, “Loving the Unequal Equal : Medieval Theologians and Marital Affection,” in The Olde Daunce : Love, Friendship, Sex and Marriage in the Medieval World, eds. Robert R. Edwards and Stephen Spector (Albany : State University of New York Press, 1991), 44-56 and 260-65; and Rüdiger Schnell, “Liesbesdiskurs und Ehediskurs im 15 und 16. Jahrhundert,” in The Graph of Sex and the German Text : Gendered Culture in Early Modern Germany, 1500-1700, ed. Lynne Tatlock (Amsterdam : Rodopi, 1994), 77-120.
- Master Ingold, Das Goldene Spiel, 15.
- “Wan maniger gebreste hie von kunt, daz ez nimet daz im ungelich ist.” Berthold von Regensburg, Vollständige Ausgabe seiner Predigten mit Anmerkungen von Franz Pfeiffer, ed. Franz Pfeiffer (Berlin : Walter de Gruyter, 1965), 1 :320.
- William A. Coupe, “Ungleiche Liebe – A Sixteenth-Century Topos,” Modern Language Review 62-4 (1967) : 661-71; Lawrence A. Silver, “The Ill-Matched Pair by Quinten Massys,” Studies in the History of Art 6 (1974) : 104-23; Alison G. Stewart, Unequal Lovers : A Study of Unequal Couples in Northern Art (New York : Abaris Books, 1979); and Ursula Rautenberg, “Altersungleiche Paare in Bild und Text,” Börsenblatt für den deutschen Buchhandel 33 (1997) : 185-88 and 60 (1997) : 367-72.
- Schnell, Sexualität und Emotionalität, 155-200.
- Michael Müller, Die Lehre des hl. Augustinus von der Paradiesesehe und ihre Auswirkung in der Sexualethik des 12. und 13. Jahrhunderts bis Thomas von Aquin (Regensburg : Pustet, 1954), 19-32; Jean Leclercq, Le mariage vu par les moines au XIIe siècle (Paris : Éd. du Cerf, 1983), 25-43; and Jean Gaudemet, “L’apport d’Augustin à la doctrine médiévale du mariage,” Augustinianum 27-3 (1987) : 559-70.
- Karl-Heinz Spiess, Familie und Verwandtschaft im deutschen Hochadel des Spätmittelalters (Stuttgart : Steiner, 1993), 398-409; Anthony Molho, Marriage Alliance in Late Medieval Florence (Cambridge : Harvard University Press, 1994), 298-348. There are similar analyses on lower nobility in Markus Bittmann, Kreditwirtschaft und Finanzierungsmethoden. Studien zu den wirtschaftlichen Verhältnissen des Adels im westlichen Bodenseeraum : 1300-1500 (Stuttgart : Steiner, 1991), 228-69.
- There exists a vast bibliography covering the dotal system. For example, see : Diane Owen Hughes, “Domestic Ideals and Social Behavior : Evidence from Medieval Genoa,” in The Family in History, ed. Charles E. Rosenberg (Philadelphia :University of Pennsylvania Press, 1975), 115-43; Diane O. Hughes, “From Brideprice to Dowry in Mediterranean Europe,” Journal of Family History 3-3 (1978) : 262-96; Marion A. Kaplan, ed., The Marriage Bargain : Woman and Dowries in European History (New York : Institute for Research in History and the Haworth Press, 1985), includes the aforementioned study by Hughes; Andrée Courtemanche, La richesse des femmes : patrimoines et gestion à Manosque au XIVe siècle (Paris : Vrin, 1993); Angela Groppi and Gabrielle Houbre, eds., special issue “Femmes, dots et patrimonies,” Clio. Histoire, femmes et sociétés 7 (1998); and François Bougard, ed., Dots et douaires dans le haut Moyen Âge (Rome : École française de Rome, 2002).
- Walter Prevenier, ed., Marriage and Social Mobility in the Late Middle Ages (Ghent : Rijksuniversiteit, 1989); Lloyd Bonfield, ed., Marriage, Property, and Succession (Berlin : Duncker & Humblot, 1992); Martha C. Howell, The Marriage Exchange : Property, Social Place, and Gender in Cities of the Low Countries, 1300-1550 (Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1998); and Lars Ivar Hansen, ed., Family, Marriage and Property Devolution in the Middle Ages (Tromsø : University of Tromsø, 2000).
- Gerhard Köbler, “Das Familienrecht in der spätmittelalterlichen Stadt,” in Haus und Familie in der spätmittelalterlichen Stadt, ed. Alfred Haverkamp (Cologne : Böhlau Verlag, 1984), 136-60. A reading of Köbler is further complemented by : Reinhard Schartl, “Das Privatrecht der Reichsstadt Friedberg im Mittelalter” (PhD diss., Gießen, 1987), 163-86; Hans-Rudolf Hagemann, Basler Rechtsleben im Mittelalter, vol. 2, Zivilrechtspflege (Basel : Helbing & Lichtenhahn, 1981), 161-79; Klaus Wolf, “Privatrecht, Prozessrecht und Notariat der Stadt Limburg im Mittelalters” (PhD diss., Gießen, 1988), 63-66; and Thomas Weibel, Erbrecht und Familie. Fortbildung und Aufzeichnung des Erbrechts in der Stadt Zürich – vom Richtbrief zum Stadterbrecht von 1716 (Zürich : Chronos, 1988), 47-63.
- Thierry Dutour, “Le mariage, institution, enjeu et idéal dans la société urbaine. Le cas de Dijon à la fin du Moyen Âge,” in Le mariage au Moyen Âge, XIe-XVe siècles, ed. Josiane Teyssot (Clermont-Ferrand : Université Blaise-Pascal, 1997), 29-54.
- For marriage contracts in general, see Philipp L. Reynolds and John Witte, eds., To Have and To Hold : Marrying and Its Documentation in Western Christendom, 400-1600 (Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2007).
- This also occurred if both spouses were still underage. See Gabriela Signori, “L’éphémère voix vivante. Les contrats de mariage dans le Sud de l’Allemagne (XIVe-XVe siècles),” in Modèles familiaux et cultures politiques, ed. Anna Bellavitis (Rome : École française de Rome, forthcoming).
- Robert Jacob, Les époux, le seigneur et la cité. Coutume et pratiques matrimoniales des bourgeois et paysans de France du Nord au Moyen Âge (Bruxelles : Facultés universitaires Saint-Louis, 1990), 44-47; Martha C. Howell, “Marital Property Law as Socio-Cultural Text : The Case of Late Medieval Douai,” in To Have and To Hold : Marrying and Its Documentation in Western Christendom, 400-1600, eds. Philipp L. Reynolds and John Witte (Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2007), 421-42.
- The term Wittumsstiftung is used by the editors of the charters in the city of Strasbourg. In the charters, Widem is used. The notion bears different meanings depending on regional customs and the social rank of contracting parties.
- Gustav Schönberg, Finanzverhältnisse der Stadt Basel im XIV. und XV. Jahrhundert (Tübingen : H. Laupp, 1879), nos. 113, 114, 979, 980, 982, 986, 991 and 997, pp. 604 and 641-42. In 1454, Hans Senior reported an income of 5,150 florins to the tax authorities; Hans Junior, 2,600 (nos. 113 and 114); Henmann Offenburg, 8,700 (no. 982); and Konrad von Laufen, 4,500 (no. 986). The Waltenheim family lived in a house on Rheinsprung Street (p. 720), Konrad von Hallwil lived nearby. Konrad von Laufen’s large household in Petersberg was comprised of ten people (p. 732). On Offenburg, see Elsanne Gilomen-Schenkel, Henmann Offenburg (1379-1459) : Ein Basler Diplomat im Dienste der Stadt, des Königs und des Reiches (Basel : F. Reinhardt, 1975).
- Städtische Urkunden, no. 1396a, Staatsarchiv Basel-Stadt (hereafter referred to as “StASB”), Basel.
- Annotations found on the verso of the act in question attest to this. One of the first statements read as follows : “Adelheiten estur brief.” Someone else’s handwriting reads : “Dis brieff sint gemein frow Angnessen vnd Flachßlanden vnd Magdalennen vnd Agatlins von Laufen.”
- “Des alles z?vestem waren vrkúnd hand wir, die obgenant Conrat von Louffen, Hanns Waltenheim, der elter, vnd Henman Offenburg, ritter, vnser ijeglicher sin eygen jngesigel gehengkt an disen brieff, vnd darz?z?merer sicherheit hand wir erbetten die ersamen wisen, nemlich ich Conrat von Louffen, Hannsen vnd Dietrichen Súrlin, gebrueder, min lieben vetteren, vnd Hannsen von Louffen, minen lieben brueder, vnd wir die vorgenanten Hanns vnd Dietrich Súrlin, Petern Offenburg vnd Jacoben Waltenhein, das sy alle vnd ijeglicher ouch sin jngesigel gehengkt hand an disen brieff, vns aller vorgeschriben dingen ze ubersagen, vnd wir die vorgenanten Hanns vnd Dietrich Súrlin, gebrueder, Hans von Louffen, Wernher Ereman, Peter Offenburg vnd Jocob Waltenhein verjehen vnd bekennen vns ouch offenlich mit disem briefe, das alles, das so obgeschriben staet, mit vnserm gueten wissen vnd willen z?gangen, vnd wir bij diser vorgeschriben beredung der heiligen ee gewesen sint, darvmb vnd ouch der benanten Conrats von Louffen, Hannsen Waltenheins vnd her Henman Offenburg, ritters, ernstlicher bette wegen hand wir alle vnd vnser ijeglicher sin eijgen ingesigel ouch gehengkt an disen brieff, doch vns vnd vnsern erben vnschaedlich.” Städtische Urkunden, no. 1396a, lines 41-47, StASB, Basel.
- Signori, “L’éphémère voix vivante.”
- “Vßrichten mit gewande, kleidern vnd das da zu gehoert, als sich denn einer semlichen tochter nach eren gezympt vnd ir gemeße ist, in mossen das mir vnd miner gemahel das erlich vnd derselben Adelheiten, miner tochter, nuetzlich sije.” Städtische Urkunden, no. 1396a, lines 35-36, StASB, Basel.
- Gerichtsarchiv B (Fertigungsbücher), 10 :183-84, StASB, Basel. Joseph Morsel, La noblesse contre le prince. L’espace social des Thüngen à la fin du Moyen ?ge (Franconie, v. 1250-1525) (Stuttgart : Thorbecke, 2000), 60-61.
- Bernhard Kirchgässner, “Commercium et connubium. Zur Frage der sozialen und geographischen Mobilität in der badischen Markssgrafschaft des späten Mittelalters,” in Pforzheim im Mittelalter. Studien zur Geschichte einer landesherrlichen Stadt, ed. Hans-Peter Becht (Sigmaringen : Thorbecke, 1983), 63-76; Ulf Dirlmeier, “Merkmale des sozialen Aufstiegs und der Zuordnung zur Führungsschicht in süddeutschen Städten des Spätmittelalters,” Pforzheim im Mittelalter. Studien zur Geschichte einer landesherrlichen Stadt, ed. Hans-Peter Becht (Sigmaringen : Thorbecke, 1983), 77-106; Kurt Andermann, “Zwischen Zunft und Patriziat. Beobachtungen zur sozialen Mobilität in oberdeutschen Städten des späten Mittelalters,” in Zwischen Nicht-Adel und Adel, eds. Kurt Andermann and Peter Johanek (Stuttgart : Thorbecke, 2003), 361-82; Karl-Heinz Spiess, “Aufstieg in den Adel und Kriterien der Adelszugehörigkeit im Spätmittelalter,” in Zwischen Nicht-Adel und Adel, eds. Kurt Andermann and Peter Johanek (Stuttgart : Thorbecke, 2003), 1-26.
- Friedrich Emil Welti, ed., Die Pilgerfahrt des Hans von Waltheym im Jahre 1474 (Bern : Stämpfli, 1925), S. 85.
- Gabriela Signori, Vorsorgen – Vererben – Erinnern. Kinder- und familienlose Erblasser in der städtischen Gesellschaft des Spätmittelalters (Göttingen : Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2001), 221-31.
- Andreas Ranft, “Die Turniere der vier Lande : Genossenschaftlicher Hof und Selbstbehauptung des niederen Adels,” Zeitschrift für die Geschichte des Oberrheins 142 (1994) : 83-102.
- Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, “Le complexe de Griselda. Dot et dons de mariage au Quattrocento,” Mélanges de l’École française de Rome, Moyen ?ge, Temps modernes 94-1 (1982) : 7-43, and published in Klapisch-Zuber, La Maison et le nom, 185-213; Stanley Chojnacki, “The Power of Love : Wives and Husbands in Late Medieval Venice,” in Women and Power in the Middle Ages, eds. Mary Erler and Maryanne Kowaleski (Athens : University of Georgia Press, 1988), 37-60.
- Judith J. Hurwich, “Marriage Strategy Among the German Nobility, 1400-1699,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 29-2 (1998) : 169-95.
- These families, whose names Fabri presents in detail in another section of his text, were from the city of Ulm.
- This is an allusion to the respective merits of virgins, widows, and wives. In the spiritual order, wives rank last. As Fabri was a religious man, he evaluated the various forms of life based on his status. See Bernhard Jussen, Der Name der Witwe. Erkundungen zur Semantik der mittelalterlichen Bußkultur (Göttingen : Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2000), 53-80.
- “Widowhood” designated a form of semi-religious life. The widow made a vow before the bishop, who then gave her a dress elevating her to the status of widow. See Mary C. Erler, “English Vowed Women at the End of the Middle Ages,” Medieval Studies 57 (1995) : 155-203.
- Bruder Felix Fabris Abhandlung von der Stadt Ulm nach der Ausgabe des litterarischen Vereins in Stuttgart, trans. Konrad Dieterich Hassler (Ulm : 1909), 63; Gustav Veesenmeyer, ed., Fratris Felicis Fabri Tractatus de civitate Ulmensi (Tübingen : Litterarischer Verein in Stuttgart, 1889), 90-91 (author’s emphasis). On the patriciate in the city of Ulm, see Gottfried Geiger, “Die Reichsstadt Ulm vor der Reformation. Städtisches und kirchliches Leben am Ausgang des Mittelalters” (PhD diss., Ulm/Stuttgart, 1971), 21-37.
- A nobleman who married a wealthy bourgeoise, however, might lose his nobility. The Spanish traveler Pero Tafur discusses this rarely explained case. See Karl Stehlin and Rudolf Thommen, trans., “Aus der Reisebeschreibung des Pero Tafur, 1438 und 1439,” Basler Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Altertumskunde 25 (1926) : 81-83.
- Gerhard Fouquet, ed. Geschlechtergesellschaften, Zunft-Trinkstuben und Bruderschaften in spätmittelalterlichen und frühneuzeitlichen Städten (Ostfildern : Thorbecke, 2003).
- The forms published in the late fifteenth century only contain models for symmetrical contracts, corroborating the fact that asymmetry was the exception, not the rule.
- Cord Boltzen, Hansen’s father, drafted a will dated May 25, 1402, in which he granted the guardianship of his children to his wife Wobbeke Semmelbecker. However, she died in October 1407. On the Pleskow family from Lübeck, see Michael Lutterbeck, Der Rat der Stadt Lübeck im 13. und 14. Jahrhundert. Politische, personale und wirtschaftliche Zusammenhänge in einer städtischen Führungsgruppe (Lübeck : Schmidt-Römhild, 2002), nos. 181-88 and 333-48.
- Mölln, however, had been part of the territory of Lübeck as early as 1359. See Hansjörg Zimmermann, Mölln. Ein geschichtlicher Überblick (Buchen : Damaschke, 1977).
- “Witlik sij, dat de ersamen her Hinrik Vysk?le, borgermester, vnd her Johan Zemelbecker, radman to Lmneborch, van wegen Hanses Boltzen vnd Andreas van Hacheden, Marquard vame Kule, Godeke Pleskowe vnd Hinrik van Hacheden, vorm?ndere Herdeken, ener dochter Hanses Pleskowen guder dechtnisse, to samende komen vnd vorgaddert … weren bynnen Molne [Mölln] vme echtschop [marriage contract] to samelende twisschen dem ergen. Hanse vnd Herdeken.” Urban act, 18 October 1417, Stadtarchiv, Lüneburg. This act was incorrectly dated and filed : it was established on October 18, 1407. For the contract, see Wilhelm Reinecke, Geschichte der Stadt Lüneburg (Lüneburg : Selbstverlag des Museumsvereins, 1933), 437.
- The contract only indicates the interest (thirty and eighteen marks) and not the capital.
- On how marriages were organized in Lüneburg, see Hans-Joachim Ziegeler, “Ehe, Recht und öffentliche Gelder. Zu Nikolaus Florekes Entwurf einer Lüneburger Hochzeitsordnung (ca. 1370),” in Ordnung und Lust. Bilder von Liebe, Ehe und Sexualität in Spätmittelalter und Früher Neuzeit, ed. Hans-Jürgen Bachorski (Trier : Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 1991), 45-69.
- Similar observations were made by Theo Mayer-May, “Die Morgengabe im Wiener Privatrecht des Spätmittelalters,” in Festschrift für Hans Lentze zum 60. Geburtstag dargebracht von Fachgenossen und Freunden, eds. Nikolaus Grass and Werner Ogris (Vienna : Wagner, 1969), 381-95.
- Eckart Thurich, Die Geschichte des Lüneburger Stadtrechts im Mittelalter (Lüneburg : Museumsverein für das Fürstentum Lüneburg, 1960), 56-59.
- Udo Kornblum, “Das Beweisrecht des Ingelheimer Oberhofes und seiner malpflichtigen Schöffenstühle im Spätmittelalter” (PhD diss., Frankfurt, 1960), 46-75. “Vnde desses to merer tuchnnisse [testimony] so sint desser scriffte twe, der de ene vt ders anderen gesneden allenes luden, vnd der hebben ene her Hinrik Vyschk?le vnd her Johan Zemelbecker erben vnd de anderer her Jorden Pleskowe vnd her Hinrik Rapesuluer.” Urban act, 18 October 1417, Stadtarchiv, Lüneburg. See Brigitte Miriam Bedos-Rezak, “Cutting Edge : The Economy of Mediality in Twelfth-Century Chirographic Writing,” in Modelle des Medialen im Mittelalter, eds. Christian Kiening and Martina Stercken (Berlin : Akad Verlag, 2010), 134-61.
- Two comparable marriage contracts between couples from two different cities, dated 1457 and 1514, are kept in the archives of the city of Überlingen (section XXVIII, marriage contracts, A 0470 and 0471). The first was for a marriage between a former burgomaster of the city of Meersburg and the daughter of a bourgeois from Überlingen. The contract stipulates that the groom was obligated to move to Überlingen. The second contract was for a marriage involving the daughter of another bourgeois from Überlingen, but this time the groom was from Konstanz. The contract was established in accordance with Überlingen city law.
- This was also the case in Alexander Hugen, Rhetorica vnd Formulare / Teütsch / dergleich nie gesehen ist / beinach alle schreibery betreffend / von vilerley Episteln / vnder vnd überschrifften / allen Geistlichen vnd Weltlichen / vnd vilerley Supplicationes / Ein gantz gerichtlicher prozeß / mit vor vnd nachgenden anhengen … (Tübingen : Ulrich Morhart, 1528). There have been numerous reprints (e.g., 1530, 1532, 1537, 1540, 1554, 1557, 1560, etc.).
- Editors of notarized documents in the city of Strasbourg used this terminology. Legal historian Hermann Arnold, from Breslau, incorrectly mentioned “marriage contracts,” as did Planitz and Buyken as well as the editors of recorded acts in Cologne. See Hermann Arnold, “Das eheliche Güterrecht der Stadt Straßurg im Elsaß bis zur Einführung des codes civil” (PhD diss., Breslau, 1904, 39-58.
- Don mutuel is the term employed in the acts.
- Johannes Schnell, Rechtsquellen von Basel. Stadt und Lande, Erster Theil (Basel : Bahnmaier, 1856), no. 144, p. 148.
- “Doch sollent solich gemechtnuisse jerlich ernuiweret werden, als das ander gemechtnuisse halp herkomen ist.” Ibid.
- Following the deaths of both spouses, the dower would fall to the family of origin in accordance with urban law. In the register, both agreements were noted separately.
- Aloys Schulte and Georg Wolfram, eds., Urkundenbuch der Stadt Straßburg, vol. 4, Stadtrechte und Aufzeichnungen über bischöflich-städtische und bischöfliche Ämter (Strasbourg : Trübner, 1888), art. 278, p. 112.
- Howell, “Marital Property Law,” 430.
- Signori, Vorsorgen – Vererben – Erinnern, 83 and 144.
- Schulte and Wolfram, Urkundenbuch der Stadt Straßburg, vol. 4, art. 278, p. 112.
- Modification of any kind was prohibited, even during the wedding ceremony. Schulte and Wolfram, Urkundenbuch der Stadt Straßburg, vol. 4, art. 279, p. 113.
- Ibid., articles 277 and 280, pp. 112-13. The lods or laudimium was, in accordance with succession law, the amount that one had to pay the lord when there was a change of ownership. Succession law has been extensively studied by ancient-law historians. See : Otto Jäger, “Die Rechtsverhältnisse des Grundbesitzes in der Stadt Straßburg während des Mittelalters” (PhD diss., Strasbourg, 1888); Karl Beer, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Erbleihe in elsässischen Städten. Mit einem Urkundenanhang (Frankfurt am Main : Selbstverlag des Elsaß-Lothringen-Instituts, 1933).
- Hans Witte, ed., Urkundenbuch der Stadt Straßburg, vol. 7, Privatrechtliche Urkunden und Rathslisten von 1332 bis 1400 (Strasbourg : Trübner, 1900), no. 56.
- Gabriela Signori, “Städtische Hofherrschaft als Hauswirtschaft (13. und 14. Jahrhundert),” Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung 38 (2011) : 1-23.
- Witte, Urkundenbuch der Stadt Straßburg, vol. 7, no. 182. Agnes is described as “filia quondam Dem?dis quondam Ruedigeri dicti Mordelin uxor cives.”
- “Dominus directus recognovit pretextu dictarum docium suum laudimium se recepisse a conjugibus prelibatis.” Ibid.
- Oswald Redlich, Die Privaturkunden des Mittelalters (Munich : R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1911; repr. 1967), 205-8.
- Witte, Urkundenbuch der Stadt Straßburg, vol. 7, no. 1776.
- In Strasbourg, a woman who married a craftsman would take her husband’s surname instead of keeping her own family’s patronymic. Purchasing contracts show that craftspeople preferred community of property. See Christof Rolker, “The Marital Economy and Female Naming Practices in Fifteenth-Century German Towns,” in Law and Private Life in the Middle Ages, eds. Per Andersen et al. (Copenhagen : DJØF Publishing, 2011), 49-60.
- “Sol ieglichem under in beiden sin g?t volgen, daz es z?dem andern braht het und sol es nútzen und nieszen ane [without] des andern irrunge und sumunge untze an die stunde, das sie wider z?samen koment.” Witte, Urkundenbuch der Stadt Straßburg, vol. 7, no. 1776. This wording appears for the first time in 1360 in the contract between C?ntze Bl?menowe and Lucken Clobeloch : see Witte, Urkundenbuch der Stadt Straßburg, vol. 7, nos. 954, 1077, and 2026. This expression concerning divorce is only found in contracts signed during the fourteenth century and not after.
- Ibid, nos. 1077, 1776, 1818, and 2026.
- Ibid., no. 174.
- Ibid., no. 187.
- Ibid., no. 1526.
- Gabriela Signori, “Haus, Name und memoria. Bürgerhäuser als Seelen- und Armenhäuser,” in Häuser, Namen, Identitäten : Beirträge zur spätmittelalterlichen und frühneuzeitlichen Stadtgestchichte, eds. Karin Czaja and Gabriela Signori (Konstanz : UVK Verlagsgesellschaft, 2009), 81-91.
- Witte, Urkundenbuch der Stadt Straßburg, vol. 7, no. 1527.
- The first contract specifies that Johannes’s father is deceased. The second makes no mention of this.
- In the sixth urban law of 1322, spouses were explicitly forbidden to give each other property that was not previously discussed during matrimonial negotiations. See Schulte and Wolfram, Urkundenbuch der Stadt Straßburg, vol. 4, articles 278 and 316. At the end of the fourteenth century, some couples ignored this prohibition : amongst them, Konrad zur Megede in 1380 and Husa, daughter of Dietmar Schönherr, in 1390 (no. 2460) who did so unilaterally and in favor of her second husband, Johannes (a.k.a. Kloster).
- Strasbourg was not the only city where the principle of egalitarian sharing first prevailed. This principle was already included in the fifth urban law of 1311. The sixth urban law reinforced the legal provisions : a father or a mother who opposed them was banned from the city for five years and had to pay a fine of ten pounds. See Witte, Urkundenbuch der Stadt Straßburg, vol. 4, art. 24, pp. 292 and articles 27, 116, and 120f, pp. 308-9.
- In Nuremberg, the involved parties archived marriage contracts in family books. See Karin Czaja, “Häuser, Truhen und Bücher. Familienarchive in der spätmittelalterlichen Stadt,” Häuser, Namen, Identitäten : Beirträge zur spätmittelalterlichen und frühneuzeitlichen Stadtgestchichte, eds. Karin Czaja and Gabriela Signori (Konstanz : UVK Verlagsgesell-schaft, 2009), 109-21.
- Jean-Yves Mariotte, Les sources manuscrites de l’histoire de Strasbourg, vol. 1, Des origines à 1790 (Strasbourg : Archives municipales de Strasbourg, 2000), 154-55.
- In 1941, C. Levy de Freiburg began keeping an inventory of the contracts but suddenly died less than a year later in the midst of his work.
- Chambre des contrats, vol. 1, fols. 16r, 42r, 58r, 82r, 99v, 104v, 113r, 169r, 172v, 177r, and 186r, Archives municipales, Strasbourg.
- Chambre des contrats, vol. 1, fol. 24r,-25r 35r, 45r, 45v, and 67r, Archives municipales, Strasbourg. Oral contracts began with phrases such as : “Allen, den sie kunt, die disen brief anesehent oder gehoeren lesen ….”
- “Jch, Johans von Ratzenhusen, vorgenant, vergihe der vorgeschribnen beredunge, das die also gescheen ist, vnd das jch die by der egenanten miner truwen gelopt habe, stete zu haltende, vnd des zu einer vrkund, so habe ich min ingesigel gehenckt in dise brieff, vnd sind her Thoman von Endingen, ritter, her Wilhelm Clobelouch, ritter, Volrich Gosse, altammeister, vnd Reimbolt Hiltebrant von Mûlnheim scabini. Datum etc. Actum vt supra.” Chambre des contrats, vol. 1, fols. 24r-25r, Archives municipales, Strasbourg.
- On the Strasbourg patriciate, see : Martin Alioth, Gruppen an der Macht. Zünfte und Patriziat in Straßburg im 14. und 15. Jahrhundert. Untersuchungen zu Verfassung, Wirtschaftsgefüge und Sozialstruktur (Basel : Helbing & Lichtenhahn, 1988), 2 :532-36; Yuko Egawa, Stadtherrschaft und Gemeinde in Straßburg vom Beginn des 13. Jahrhunderts bis zum Schwarzen Tod (1349) (Trier : Kliomedia, 2007), 129-77 and 210-22.
- Several ravestissements in the Strasbourg register and the Widem in Basel only concern the house. All of the contracting parties were craftspeople. None of these ravestissements was recorded in the contractual records.
- “Wir, Johans von Wickersheim, der meister vnd der rat von Straspurg tunt kunt allen die disen brief etc., das Reinbolt Bumann, vnser burger, das gelt vnd g?t, das hiernach geschriben stat, gegeben z?eim rehten widemen frowe Odilien von Kagenecke, Anshelms von Kagenecke seligen vnd frow Susannen, irer m?ter, dohter.” Chambre des contrats, vol. 1, fol. 3r, Archives municipales, Strasbourg. See also Joseph Morsel, “La noblesse dans la mort. Sociogenèse funéraire du groupe nobiliaire en Franconie, XIVe-XVIe siècles,” in Autour des Morts. Mémoire et identité, eds. Olivier Dumoulin and Françoise Thelamon (Rouen : Publications de l’université de Rouen, 2001), 387-417.
- Chambre des contrats, vol. 1, fols. 129-30 and 193-95, Archives municipales, Strasbourg. In 1432, Landsberg married a woman from the Rebstöckin family. Around 1402, Rathsamhausen married a woman from the Hüfferlin family.
- This is a common theme in many, not only in Protestant, sermons. See Jutta Eming and Ulrike Gaebel, “Wie man zwei Rinder in ein Joch spannt. Zu Heinrich Bullingers, Der Christliche Ehestand’,” in Eheglück und Liebesjoch. Bilder von Liebe, Ehe und Familie in der Literatur des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts, ed. Maria E. Müller (Basel : Beltz, 1988), 125-54.
- There is no entry for the notion of equality in the dictionary of Historische Grundbegriffe, despite having been the subject of several studies focusing on the legal, political and social dimensions of this notion (not taking into account marriage or male/female relationships. See : Wilhelm Kölmel, “Freiheit – Gleichheit – Unfreiheit’ in der sozialen Theorie des späten Mittelalters,” in Soziale Ordnungen im Selbstverständnis des Mittelalters, ed. Albert Zimmermann (Berlin : W. de Gruiter, 1980), 2 :389-407; Barbara Frenz, Gleichheitsdenken in deutschen Städten des 12. bis 15. Jahrhunderts. Geistesgeschichte, Quellensprache, Gesellschaftsfunktion (Cologne : Böhlau, 2000).
- Nicole Oresme, Le livre de Yconomique d’Aristote. Critical Edition of the French Text from the Avranches Manuscript with the Original Latin Version. Introduction and English Translation, ed. Albert Douglas Menut (Philadelphia : American Philosophical Society, 1957), 816; Serge Lusignan, “Nicole Oresme traducteur et la pensée de la langue française savante,” in Nicolas Oresme. Tradition et innovation chez un intellectuel du XIVe siècle, eds. Pierre Souffrin and Alain-Philippe Segonds (Paris : Les Belles Lettres, 1988), 93-104.
Originally published by Annales: Histoire, Sciences Sociales 67:3 (2012, 481-502) under the terms of a Creative Commons license.