Women’s Succession from the Middle Ages to the Modern Era

Women’s succession in the Middle Ages and in the Modern Era is a privileged perspective to understand the political and social dynamics of those periods. Every woman was given a dowry when she married or when she entered a monastery. Thus, just because of her dowry, she could not claim anything from the hereditaments on her father’s death. This essay analyses this topic in the light of the statutes of the Italian communes. Some of them, less known and not yet studied by historians, confirm that the ius proprium tended to derogate from the ius commune and also to provide against the ius commune. Women were obliged to reject their inheritance by means of oaths or agreements, so that the family patrimony was preserved. Indeed, a kind of unspoken solidarity among women—sometimes not revealed by historians—was present. This essay does not analyse the topic from a ‘gender’ point of view, but means to reconstruct the cultural background of legal provisions which showed a conception of women that would survive intact also in the codes. For centuries the idea of fragilitas sexus justified women’s marginalization and limitation of rights. Even the Enlightenment philosophers in the 18th century did not overcome this idea, although they demanded a society composed of equals.