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Married Women in Legal Practice; Agency and Norms in the Swedish

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Married Women in Legal Practice; Agency and Norms in the Swedish Married Women in Legal Practice This book describes the ways in which married women appeared in legal practice in the medieval Swedish realm, 1350–1450, through both the agency of women and the norms that surrounded their actions. Since there were no court protocols kept, legal practice must be studied through other sources. For this book, more than six thousand original charters have been researched, and a database has been created of all the charters pertaining to women. This enables new findings from an area that has previously not been studied on a larger scale and reveals trends and tendencies regarding aspects considered central to married women’s agency, such as networks, criminal liability, and procedural capacity. Charlotte Cederbom is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki. Routledge Research in Gender and History Women, Land Rights and Rural Development How Much Land Does a Woman Need? Esther Kingston-Mann Revisiting Gender in European History, 1400–1800 Edited by Elise M. Dermineur, Åsa Karlsson Sjögren and Virginia Langum Women and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Rebecca Adami Informal Marriages in Early Modern Venice Jana Byars The Masculine Modern Woman Pushing Boundaries in the Swedish Popular Media of the 1920s Jenny Ingemarsdotter Gendering Spaces in European Towns, 1500–1914 Edited by Elaine Chalus and Marjo Kaartinen The Anti-Abortion Campaign in England, 1966–1989 Olivia Dee British Women Travellers Empire and Beyond, 1770–1870 Edited by Sutapa Dutta Married Women in Legal Practice Agency and Norms in the Swedish Realm, 1350–1450 Charlotte Cederbom For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/ Routledge-Research-in-Gender-and-History/book-series/SE0422 Married Women in Legal Practice Agency and Norms in the Swedish Realm, 1350–1450 Charlotte Cederbom First published 2020 by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 Taylor & Francis The right of Charlotte Cederbom to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. The Open Access version of this book, available at www. taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Cederbom, Charlotte, 1982– author. Title: Married women in legal practice : agency and norms in the Swedish realm, 1350–1450 / Charlotte Cederbom. Description: New York, NY : Routledge 2020 | Series: Routledge research in gender and history ; volume 38 | Based on author’s thesis (doctoral – Helsingin yliopisto, 2017) issued under title: The legal guardian and married women : norms and practice in the Swedish realm 1350–1450. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “This book describes the ways in which married women appeared in legal practice in the medieval Swedish realm 1350–1450, through both the agency of women, and through the norms that surrounded their actions. Since there were no court protocols kept, legal practice must be studied through other sources. For this book, more than 6,000 original charters have been researched, and a database of all the charters pertaining to women created. This enables new findings from an area that has previously not been studied on a larger scale, and reveals trends and tendencies regarding aspects considered central to married women’s agency, such as networks, criminal liability, and procedural capacity”—Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2019028236 (print) | LCCN 2019028237 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367363123 (hardback) | ISBN 9780429345234 (ebook) | ISBN 9781000692921 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781000693287 (epub) | ISBN 9781000693102 (mobi) Subjects: LCSH: Married women—Legal status, laws, etc.—Sweden— History—To 1500. Classification: LCC KKV550 .C43 2019 (print) | LCC KKV550 (ebook) | DDC 340.082/09485—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019028236 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019028237 ISBN: 978-0-367-36312-3 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-34523-4 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Apex CoVantage, LLC Contents List of Figures vi Preface vii List of Abbreviations ix Introduction 1 1 Defining Women’s Legal Status 27 2 Married Women and Legal Representation 49 3 Married Women and Property Management 95 4 What Married Women Could and Did Do—A Summary and Some Conclusions 168 Printed Sources 174 Bibliography 176 Index 185 Figures I.1 Map of modern Scandinavia, with outlines of the medieval Swedish realm highlighted. 5 I.2 Total number of charters in DW, by decade of issuing. 20 I.3 An overview of the total number of charters in any of the categories of the five legal transactions, divided by DW, women as primary agents, and OM. 21 3.1 Women as primary agents in the category ‘Sales,’ based on DW. 114 3.2 Wives as primary agents in the category ‘Sales,’ based on DW. 116 3.3 Women as primary agents in the category ‘Trades,’ based on DW. 122 3.4 Women as primary agents in the category ‘Donations,’ based on DW. 126 3.5 Women as primary agents in the category ‘Testaments,’ based on DW. 127 3.6 Total number of charters in the category ‘Dividing Inheritance,’ based on DW and OM. 139 3.7 Total number of charters in the category ‘Morning Gifts,’ based on DW. 141 3.8 Women as primary agents in the category ‘Sales,’ according to marital status, based on DW. 147 Preface This book is a reworked version of my doctoral thesis from 2017, and it has been long in the making. What is now a book, started as a young girl’s love of shining knights and fancy dresses that made a swooshing sound when you walked slowly. A yearning to know more, to find out what it was really like, drove me to read and read and read. But the more I read, the more it seemed as if something were lacking, and that too many things rooted in modern, contemporary gendered structures were presumed to have shaped medieval thinking too. At the same time, several amazing women scholars voiced similar concerns, dressing my thoughts in researched words, encouraging me to pursue my dream to add to this knowledge. Sometimes, I think of it as a way of reclaiming a past, a history needed in order to move forward. This project started out as an overambitious, straggly plan to do every­ thing at once. Saving me from spending the next fifty or so years with this project were my excellent supervisors and mentors, Björn Forsén and Anu Lahtinen, who helped me transform this into a manageable whole. Read­ ing more than six thousand original charters has been, to say the least, time-consuming, and I am forever indebted to the staff at Riksarkivet (the National Archives of Sweden, in Stockholm), not only for digitizing and thereby making the charters available to anyone but also replying quickly to my endless questions. Sara Risberg, Associate Professor and Editor at the Riksarkivet, is a treasure. Maria Sjöberg, my opponent for my doc­ toral thesis defense, provided comments that have vastly improved this manuscript, and Cara Hjelt and Daniel Roth are heroes for reading and commenting on the manuscript in its entirety. In unpredictable and chal­ lenging times, the calm encouragement of my editor, Max Novick, has been invaluable. Through seminars and conferences, more colleagues and friends than I can possibly name have given their views on my research through the years, and for this, I am incredibly grateful. Research grows only in company. In working on this manuscript, Ylva Grufstedt has provided me with the most formidable, coffee-infused, chocolate-driven company. viii Preface Though one might think that children, because of their tender age, would not be able to contribute much to a manuscript such as this, it may never have seen the light of day were it not for my children—Vilho, Tilda, and baby Gabriel. They are the light of my life, my source of inspi­ ration, and the reason for everything I do. The way they ask questions, never tire of learning, and always keep an open mind, even to the most extraordinary ideas, is truly inspirational. They are, in the best sense of the word, researchers. Abbreviations DF Diplomatarium Fennicum, a database containing information on Finnish medieval charters, digitized from the charter collec­ tion Finlands Medeltidsurkunder (1910–1935) DW Database of Women, a database created for this study, contain­ ing all charters between 1350 and 1450 pertaining to women KLNM Kulturhistoriskt lexikon för nordisk medeltid KLR King Kristofer’s Law of the Realm, an updated version of MEL, issued in 1442 MEL Magnus Eriksson’s Law of the Realm, issued in 1350 MET Magnus Eriksson’s Town Law, issued around 1350 OM Only Men Database, a database created for this study, contain­ ing all charters between 1350 and 1450 that do not mention any women SAOB Svenska Akademiens ordbok, a historical wordbook SBL Svenskt biografiskt lexikon SDHK Svenskt Diplomatariums Huvudkartotek, a database created and maintained by the Swedish National Archives, containing more than 40,000 posts with information on Swedish medieval charters ÄSF Äldre svenska frälseätter Introduction Say to yourself as a good wife says to herself: “As long as my husband loves me, why should I worry? If he is at peace with me, whom should I fear? Therefore, so that he does not grow angry with me, I will show him every honor and always be ready to carry out his will.” St.
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