Negotiating agency: Labouring-status wives and their dowries in early fifteenth-century Valencia

In six chapters, my dissertation examines the ways that labouring-status wives negotiated agency for themselves by looking specifically at their marital assets from their conferment when they contracted marriage to their restitution, when these unions went wrong. It argues that although the prevailing legal code in Valencia, the Furs, appeared to give women little influence over their property, the reality of the situation was much more complex. Strongly influenced by the Corpus Iuris Civilis, the Furs contained clauses that allowed women to sue their husbands for the restitution of their dowries for abandonment and insolvency, as well as for any kind of husbandly mismanagement of their property. Evidence from the court of the Civil Justice demonstrates that women of lower status were clearly aware of their legal right to restitution and were using the court to regain control of their property from their husbands' hands. Women of this status were able to negotiate the patriarchal laws regarding their marital assets to their advantage.;Overall, my dissertation contributes to the growing body of historical work that focuses on women, marriage and the family in Medieval Europe. However, while much of this work has been centred on other areas of northern and southern Europe (England and Italy for example), the historiography for Spain is still very much in the nascent stage. My dissertation therefore aims to compare previous work done for other parts of Europe to the situation in Valencia in order to help provide a fuller view of married women's lives in the medieval period.