Litigating Women in the City of Valencia, 1550-1600
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Taking it to Court: Litigating Women in the City of Valencia, 1550-1600 Item Type text; Electronic Dissertation Authors Gonzales, Cynthia Ann Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 03/10/2021 09:58:57 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/195894 TAKING IT TO COURT: LITIGATING WOMEN IN THE CITY OF VALENCIA, 1550-1600 by Cynthia Ann Gonzales _____________________ Copyright © Cynthia Ann Gonzales A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 2008 2 THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA GRADUATE COLLEGE As members of the Dissertation Committee, we certify that we have read the dissertation prepared by Cynthia Ann Gonzales entitled “Taking it to Court: Litigating Women in the City of Valencia, 1550-1600” and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy _______________________________________________________________________ Date: 2/22/2008 Helen Nader _______________________________________________________________________ Date: 2/22/2008 Susan Karant-Nunn _______________________________________________________________________ Date: 2/22/2008 Alison Futrell Final approval and acceptance of this dissertation is contingent upon the candidate’s submission of the final copies of the dissertation to the Graduate College. I hereby certify that I have read this dissertation prepared under my direction and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement. ________________________________________________ Date: 2/22/2008 Dissertation Director: Helen Nader ________________________________________________ Date: 2/22/2008 Dissertation Director: Susan Karant-Nunn 3 STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This dissertation has been submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for an advanced degree at the University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this dissertation are allowable without special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the copyright holder. SIGNED: Cynthia Ann Gonzales 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank the William J. Fulbright Association for major research funding for this dissertation. Additional support came from the Program for Cultural Cooperation between Spain’s Ministry of Education, Culture, and Sports and United States’ Universities. 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES ………………………………………………………………………7 LIST OF TABLES…………………………………………………………………….......8 ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………………….........9 INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………….11 Valencian Women and Civil Suits…………………………………………………….18 Chapter Synopsis……………………………………………………………………...24 The Sixteenth Century City…………………………………………………………...27 The Valencian Economy………………………………………………………………30 CHAPTER ONE VALENCIAN WIDOWS: REDEFINING WIDOWHOOD THROUGH LITIGATION………………………………………………………………36 The Evidence…………………….……………………………………………………39 Approaches to the Study of Widowhood……………………………………………...47 Widowhood in Spain…………………………………………………………………..54 A Valencian Shopkeeper’s Widow……………………………………………………60 A Widow Guardian and A Contested Vínculo ………………………………………...63 Widows and Marginality………………………………………………………………67 CHAPTER TWO MORE ON MARITAL STATUS: LITIGATING WIVES AND A FEW SINGLE WOMEN………………………………………………………...………73 The Visibility of Women……………………………………………………………...76 Shifting the Distribution of Power…………………………………………………….83 CHAPTER THREE TESTING THE BONDS OF LOYALTY: FEMALE LITIGANTS AND FAMILY DISPUTES…..………………………………………………………….98 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS – Continued The Family in Action………………………………………………………………….99 Family Disputes……………………………………………………………………...107 In-Laws and Sibling Rivalry…………………………………………………………115 Other Household Members…………………………………………………………..121 CHAPTER FOUR WOMEN’S PURSUIT OF URBAN AND AGRICULTURAL REAL ESTATE……………………………………………………………………...………....126 Property Management, Home Ownership, and the Real Estate Market……………..128 From Home Ownership to Agricultural Real Estate…………………………………135 CHAPTER FIVE A COMPARISON OF LITIGATION AND LEGAL CUSTOMS AMONG EARLY MODERN WOMEN….……………………………………………149 The Rise of Litigation and Knowledge of the Legal System………………………...152 Women’s Legal Authority and the Pursuit of Litigation…………………………….158 CONCLUSION…………………………….…………………………………………...185 APPENDIX A CIVIL SUITS INVOLVING FEMALE LITIGANTS, 1550-1600…...189 WORKS CITED………………………………………………………………………..209 7 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 Woman of fashion going to church in Valencia 1………………………………11 Figure 2 Woman walking in the kingdom of Valencia 2………………………………...13 Figure 3 La Audiencia and Palace of the Valencian Cortes 3……………………………20 Figure 4 View of the Cathedral from the Plaza de la Virgin 4…………………………...33 Figure 5 La Lonja de Valencia 5…………………………………………………………34 Figure 6 The Muir Family Tree………………………………………………………..139 1 Christoph Weiditz, Authentic Everyday Dress of the Renaissance: All 154 Plates from the “Trachtenbuch” (New York: Dover, 1994), plate LXXII. 2 Ibid., plate LXXVII. 3 Photographed by J. Laurent between1860 and 1880. 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid. 8 LIST OF TABLES Table 1 Cases of Litigation: Real Audiencia, 1550-1600……………………………….40 Table 2 Litigating Widows, 1550-1600…………………………………………………42 Table 3 Widows’ Opponents, 1550-1600……………………………………………….42 Table 4 Issues Contested by Widows, 1550-1600………………………………………45 Table 5 Cases of Litigation: Women and the Real Audiencia, 1550-1600……………..78 Table 6 Cases Filed Jointly, 1550-1600…………………………………………………84 Table 7 Issues Contested in Cases Filed Jointly, 1550-1600……………………………85 Table 8 Married Women’s Opponents, 1550-1600……………………………………..87 Table 9 Issues Contested by Married Women, 1550-1600……………………………...95 9 ABSTRACT This dissertation explores the history of women and litigation in the Spanish- Mediterranean city of Valencia between 1550 and 1600 through the examination of 114 civil suits filed in the appellate court of the Real Audiencia (Royal Supreme Court of the kingdom of Valencia). During this time, one-third of all legal cases reviewed by the Royal Supreme Court involved a female litigant as either the primary supplicant or defendant, and in some cases, women were both. Widows, wives, and daughters of Valencian artisans and merchants, farmers, and the elite initiated litigation over various socio-economic issues including disputed inheritances, dowries, yearly incomes, and urban and agricultural property. As good Valencian citizens, female litigants utilized the judicial system, particularly civil law courts, in order to negotiate their financial welfare during a time of economic prosperity in the city. In so doing, they demonstrated an understanding of local legal customs as well as their socio-economic rights, which they confidently defended. Historians have characterized early modern Spain as a litigious society, but there are few studies of Spanish litigation that focus primarily on the legal pursuits of women in civil court. Instead, scholarship has addressed Spanish women’s involvement in criminal trials, an emphasis which tends to portray women as marginal to Spanish society. Civil litigation, however, presents women as individuals actively making daily decisions that impacted others from throughout their community. Moreover, the subject of women and litigation in Valencia reveals the degree to which local courts and the urban community, including men, supported women’s legal and 10 economic interests during the sixteenth century. Such local support further illustrates that women were central as opposed to marginal in early modern Spanish society. 11 INTRODUCTION Figure 1. Woman of fashion going to church in Valencia . To speak of a Valencian woman in the sixteenth century was to speak of her famed beauty and intriguing sense of fashion. (See Figure 1.) At least, that was what contemporary travelers often recalled about Valencian women after visiting the Spanish port city. By the early modern period, Valencian women were well-known for their exceptional good looks, contributing to Valencia’s fame as a “gallant city of beautiful women”. This reputation was partly a result of the high traffic through the thriving brothels of the fifteenth and sixteenth century, which housed Valencian prostitutes 12 making a living by providing intimate services. 6 The alluring prostitutes, however, were not the only women in the city who inspired a curious glance by male visitors. When the German doctor Jerónimo Münzer toured the city in the late fifteenth century, he responded to the everday women who were out for a typical evening stroll by commenting on their “excessively bizarre” and slightly revealing dress in addition to their unacceptable use of face paint, oils, and perfumes. 7 (See Figure 2.) Quick to judge their physical appearance, Münzer said nothing further about the Valencian women he encountered. Such superficial observations by European tourists and travel writers provide a severely limited portrait of the everyday activities of urban women living in the capital city. 8