Abstract
Historians of Florence typically treat the family patrimony as a single entity under the control of the male head of household. That included the dowry and other property his wife brought to him. In so doing these historians follow the cues offered by normative sources. However, in law there were, in fact, several types of property a wife could bring to a marriage, and she had rights to manage some of those herself. And dowry was a charge on the patrimony that husbands swore to uphold. They could not easily alienate dowry, and certainly not without consent of their wives. A closer look at household accounts demonstrates that husbands managed their property with an eye to obligations they had to preserve and return dowry and other spousal property on dissolution of marriage. And examination of cases by means of consilia illustrates how jurists interpreted spousal legal property rights and wives’ and widows’ disposal of their holdings.
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Notes
- 1.
Guicciardini, Francesco. 1981. Ricordi, diari, memorie, ed. Marco Spinella. Roma: Riuniti, 39.
- 2.
For a sampling, in addition to works cited below by Klapisch-Zuber, Chabot, Kirshner, Kovesi-Killerby, and Kuehn, Heather, Gregory. 1987. Daughters, Dowries and Family in Fifteenth-Century Florence. Rinascimento 27: 217–37; Fubini Leuzzi, Maria. 1999. “Condurre a onore”: Famiglia, matrimonio e assistenza a Firenze in età moderna. Florence: Olschki. On Venice, see Chojnacki, Stanley. 2000. Women and Men in Renaissance Venice: Twelve Essays on Patrician Society. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, but see also Bellavitis, Anna and Chabot, Isabelle. 2005. A proposito di ‘Men and Women in Renaissance Venice’ di Stanley Chojnacki. Quaderni storici 118: 203–29.
- 3.
Cf. Alberti, Leon Battista. 1969. The Family in Renaissance Florence (trans. Renee Neu Watkins). Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 180 and 186. On Alberti in a civic context, see Boschetto, Luca. 2000. Leon Battista Alberti e Firenze. Firenze: Olschki.
- 4.
Alberti (as n. 3) 211.
- 5.
Barbaro, Francesco. 1978. On Wifely Duties (trans. Benjamin G. Kohl). In The Earthly Republic: Italian Humanists on Government and Society, ed. Benjamin G. Kohl and Ronald G. Witt, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 189–228, especially 215–20.
- 6.
Morelli, Giovanni. 1956. Ricordi, ed. Vittore Branca. Firenze: Le Monnier, 187–88. See also my 1991. Law, Family, and Women: Toward a Legal Anthropology of Renaissance Italy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 223–24.
- 7.
Bellomo, Manlio. 1961. Ricerche sui rapporti patrimoniali tra coniugi: contributo alla storia della famiglia medievale. Milano: Giuffrè, 108 and 246–47.
- 8.
Casey, James. 1989. The History of the Family. Oxford and New York: Blackwell, 34.
- 9.
Ago, Renata. 1995. Ruoli familiari e statuto giuridico. Quaderni storici 88: 111–33, at 126.
- 10.
These issues and Baldo’s consilium have been insightfully analyzed in Kirshner, Julius. 1991. Materials for a Gilded Cage: Nondotal Assets in Florence, 1300–1500. In The Family in Italy from Antiquity to the Present, ed. David. I. Kertzer and Richard P. Saller. New haven and London: Yale University Press, 184–227, now in his 2015. Marriage, Dowry, and Citizenship in Late Medieval and Renaissance Italy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 74–93.
- 11.
Pluss, Jacques Anthony. 1984. Baldus de Ubaldis of Perugia on Dominium over Dotal Property. Tijdschrift voor Rechtsgeschiedenis 52: 399–411.
- 12.
Kirshner 1991 (as n. 10) 77–78.
- 13.
Baldo, Consilia (Venice, 1575), 5 vols. 5 cons. 478, fol. 128va: “sed verius videtur quod aut mulier hoc facit pro subveniendo necessitati viri, et non repetit, nam tenetur ei subvenire posito in necessitate C unde vir et uxor l. i et Authen. preterea et in corpore unde summitur. Sunt enim socii divinae et humanae domus et una caro, et alter alteri onera debet portare sed vir uxoris, quia semper mulieres semper videntur in necessitate ff de donatio. inter virum et uxorem l. quin uxor, autem viri pro raro et contra communiter accidentia. Sed si tamen de facto vir laborat inopia et uxor sit dives virum tenetur alere: nisi forte vir in eadem inciderit propter suum maleficium, ut extra de consuetudi. cap. ex parte vestra aut uxor haec facit largiatur viro, et tunc vir tenetur nisi morte uxoris donatio sit confirmata d. l. si stipulata in princip. in glo. que incipit sive uxor.” His text has received a critical edition in Kirshner, Julius and Pluss, Jacques. 1979. Two Fourteenth–Century Opinions on Dowries, Paraphernalia and Non-Dotal Goods. Bulletin of Medieval Canon Law 9: 65–77, at 76–77. Also Mayali, Laurent. 2008. Duo erunt in carne una and the Medieval Canonists. In Iuris Historia: Liber Amicorum Gero Dolezalek, ed. Vincenzo Colli and Emanuele Conte. Berkeley: Robbins Collection, 161–75; Signori, Gabriela. 2012. Similitude, égalité et réciprocité: l’économie matrimoniale dans les sociétés urbaines de l’Empire à la fin du Moyen Âge. Annales: Histoires, Sciences Sociales 67: 657–78.
- 14.
Kirshner and Pluss 1979 (as n. 13) 70, 75: “propter quam ex paciencia resultat presumptio discensus seu voluntatis coacte.”
- 15.
Kirshner and Pluss 1979 (as n. 13) 70, 75: “communis utriusque sexus natura est ut nemo in dubio presumatur pecunias suas iactare l. cum in debito ff de prob. Sed donare est perdere ut l. contra iuris ff de pac. ergo non est presumendum quod fuerit donatio. Preterea probatur ex speciali foeminei sexus natura, quae est ut omnes sint avarissime, adeo quod donare non praesumantur.”
- 16.
Kaser, Max. 1968. Roman Private Law (trans Rolf Dannenbring). Durban: Butterworths, 250–51.
- 17.
Kaser (as n. 16) 287; Borkowski, Andrew and du Plessis, Paul. 2005. Textbook on Roman Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 213.
- 18.
This consilium is in Baldo’s, 2 cons. 366, fols. 100rb-vb.
- 19.
Ago 1995 (as n. 9) 126.
- 20.
Chabot, Isabelle. 2011. La dette des familles. Femmes, lignage et patrimoine à Florence aux xiv e et xv e siècles. Rome: École Française.
- 21.
Bellomo 1961 (as n. 7) 139.
- 22.
“Occasione alicuius successionis possit ea defendere contra omnes creditores viri ab omni persona et loco, occasione viri” (quoted in Bellomo 1961 (as n. 7) 140–41).
- 23.
Bellomo 1961 (as n. 7) 142.
- 24.
Chabot 2011 (as n. 20) 146–62.
- 25.
Kirshner, Julius. 2015. The Seven Percent Fund of Renaissance Florence. In Marriage, Dowry, and Citizenship in Late Medieval and Renaissance Italy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 114–30, at 127.
- 26.
Kuehn 1991 (as n. 6) 206.
- 27.
Kirshner 1991 (as n. 10) 87–90.
- 28.
1999. Statuti della repubblica fiorentina, ed. Romolo Caggese, 2 vols, ed. Giuliano Pinto, Francesco Salvestrini, and Andrea Zorzi 2, Statuti del podestà dell'anno 1325. Firenze: Olschki, 91–93.
- 29.
1778–83. Statuta communis Florentiae anno salutis mccccxv, 1. Friburgi: apud Michaelem Kluch, 156–59.
- 30.
Kirshner, Julius. 1985. Wives’ Claims against Insolvent Husbands in Late Medieval Italy, now in Kirschner 2015 (as n. 25) 131–60; Kuehn, Thomas. 2016. Protecting Dowries in Law in Renaissance Florence. In Studies on Florence and the Italian Renaissance in honour of F. W. Kent, ed. Peter Howard and Cecilia Hewlett. Turnhout: Brepols.
- 31.
Hardwick, Julie. 2009. Family Business: Litigation and the Political Economies of Daily Life in Early Modern France. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 49.
- 32.
Statuta (1415) 1, 160.
- 33.
Statuti (1325), 93.
- 34.
Statuta (1415) 1, 161.
- 35.
Kirshner 1991 (as n. 10) 84.
- 36.
Statuta (1415) 1, 206.
- 37.
Statuti (1325), 103; Kirshner 1991 (as n. 10) 82–83.
- 38.
Statuta (1415) 1, 161–62.
- 39.
Kirshner 1991 (as n. 10) 75.
- 40.
Kirshner 1991 (as n. 10) 79.
- 41.
Chabot 2011 (as n. 20) 176–77.
- 42.
Statuti (1325), 130.
- 43.
Statuta (1415) 1, 222–23; Chabot 2011 (as n. 20) 51–56.
- 44.
Kirshner 1991 (as n. 10) 83.
- 45.
Statuti (1325), 107; Statuta (1415) 1, 203–4.
- 46.
Kuehn 1991 (as n. 6) 212–37. See also Feci, Simona. 2004. Pesci fuor d’acqua. Donne a Roma in età moderna: diritti e patrimoni. Roma: Viella.
- 47.
Kirshner 1991 (as n. 10) 86.
- 48.
Herlihy, David and Klapisch-Zuber, Christiane, Tuscans and Their Families (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), 12.
- 49.
Panzano, Luca da. 2010. “Brighe, affanni, volgimenti di stato”: le ricordanze quattrocentesche di Luca di Matteo di messer Luca dei Firidolfi da Panzano, ed. Anthony Molho and Franek Sznura. Firenze: SISMEL-Edizioni del Galluzzo.
- 50.
Kirshner 1991 (as n. 10) 75.
- 51.
“I detti danari ò fatti dire chosì perché ischadendo che detta mia donna volesse suo dota manchando io, ch’e miei figliuoli non s’abino a ischorporare tutte loro possisione e che rimanghi loro da vivere” (Panzano 2010 (as n. 48) 82–83).
- 52.
Because “ffui di più soleciti merchatanti del mondo e per mare [e] per terra e di nonnulla con gran chredito e infine gran limosiniere e fé gran defici per Dio di muragllie” (180).
- 53.
“Con condizione che dopo la mor te di detta monna Bartolomea il detto podere fussi di monna Luchrezia di Salvadore del Chaccia, con condizione che ella non abi altro marito che oggi à, o per morte di detta Luchrezia o per altro marito togliesse sia de’ suoi figliuoli che à o che avesse del detto Lucha da Panzano oggi suo marito” (190).
- 54.
“e’ panni che io avessi ispesi di miei danari o di danari di dota che abbi auti si sieno di me Lucha, e che la dota non possi loro adomandare” (199).
- 55.
In parallel, see Hardwick 2009 (as n. 31) 71–72.
- 56.
Baldo, 2 cons. 234 and 235, fol. 66rb-vb.
- 57.
He may have hit on this because married women were expressly exempted by statute from liability for their fathers’ debts, unless they were heirs to their fathers (Statuta (1415), 1: 205).
- 58.
Angelo degli Ubaldi. 1575. Consilia. Frankfurt, cons. 62, fols. 40rb–41ra.
- 59.
Angelo degli Ubaldi (as n. 58) fol. 40va: “ cum tempore matrimonii mulier bona sua stabilia habet, ut sic illa vir se credat possessurum pro dote, aliter matrimonium nullatenus contracturus fuisset. Ad hoc enim naturalis stimulus noster inclinat, tam ratione cupidinis quam ut sustineri possint onera matrimonii.”
- 60.
Angelo degli Ubaldi (as n. 58) cons. 335, fol. 236ra–va.
- 61.
On him, see Martines, Lauro. 1968. Lawyers and Statecraft in Renaissance Florence. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 499–500; Biscione, Giuseppe. 2009. Statuti del Comune di Firenze nell’Archivio di Stato. Tradizione archivistica e ordinamenti. Roma: Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali, 661–74; Tanzini, Lorenzo. 2004. Statuti e legislazione a Firenze dal 1355 al 1415: Lo statuto cittadino del 1409. Firenze: Olschki, 280–310.
- 62.
Paolo di Castro. 1571. Consilia, 3 vols., Venice, 3 cons. 37, fols. 42va–44rb.
- 63.
On him, Bargagli, Roberta. 2000. Bartolomeo Sozzini: giurista e politico (1436–1506). Milano: Giuffrè.
- 64.
Sozzini, Bartolomeo and Mariano. 1579. Consilia, 4 vols., Venice, 1 cons. 56, fols. 121vb–25ra. The immediately following second consilium on the case added further references, including to Florentine jurists, and dealt more fully with the Jewish oath and the need to punish a Jew, nonetheless, for supposed perjury (1 cons. 57, fols. 125ra–28ra).
- 65.
Sozzini 1579 (as n. 64), 1 cons. 128, fols. 216vb–217rb.
- 66.
Decio, Filippo. 1570. Consilia. Venice, cons. 301, fols. 329vb–30vb: “ex proemio statuti apparet quod tale statutum fuit factum ad obviandum fraudibus ne mulieres eorum facilitate deciperentur, quia statutum presumit et habet pro constante quod absque solennitate statuti mulieres se obligantes seductae fuerint propter verecundiam sexus et timorem reverentialem, quem eis sexus et natura induxit, ut statutum ad removendum fraudes, tale statutum debet ampliari et late interpretari, sicut videmus quod iura communia facta ad occurrendum fraudibus et malitiis extenduntur et latam recipiunt interpretationem etiam si materia esset odiosa.”
- 67.
Decio 1570 (as n. 66).
- 68.
Decio 1570 (as n. 66), cons. 279, fols. 304rb–305rb: “quia veritate et ratione consonat, adeo quod verisimiliter aliter iudicari non possit quod donatio facta novercae per dictam Corneliam videtur facta contemplatione patris consentientis, et non propter ipsam novercam, quia noverca odiosa est privigno vel privignae.”
- 69.
Decio 1570 (as n. 66), cons. 279, fols. 304rb–305rb.
- 70.
Sozzini 1579 (as n. 63), 3 cons. 119, fols. 155va–57va.
- 71.
Sozzini 1579 (as n. 63), 3 cons. 83, fol. 98ra–va: “sed est alia etiam causa et tunc non datur repetitio et non resolvitur … et ita est in casu nostro, quia si est causa liberandi maritum ne caperetur ultra causam conservando domum, immo illa magis principalis in contractu videtur consideranda, igitur conservatio domus non fuit in totum causa finalis et per consequens non debet contractus resolvi … et maxime quia, ut dixi, videtur quod mota fuerit amore viri … et quod potius vellet personam conservare quam bona.”
- 72.
Di Castro 1571 (as n. 62), 3 cons. 6, fols. 9va–10va.
- 73.
Cf. Kuehn, Thomas. 2008. Heirs, Kin, and Creditors in Renaissance Florence. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 68–69, 165.
- 74.
Sozzini 1579 (as n. 64), 1 cons. 61, fols. 113rb–15va: “Preterea etiam respondetur quod testator videtur respexisse ad dispositionem statuti volentis quod vir habeat ususfructum acquisitorum uxori, cui voluit providere ne quaeretur viro dominae Ginevrae, sicut in simili habemus … Et si dicatur statutum tantum providet circa ususfructum et non circa proprietatem ita tantum providet respectu viri, non autem providet quo ad filios. Cum ergo domina Nicolosa prohibuerit nedum quaeri ius in usufructu sed etiam in proprietate, item nedum viro sed etiam filiis, non videtur respexisse ad praedictum statutum de acquisitione ususfructus fienda viro, nam cum prohibitio respeciat proprietatem, verba prohibitionis nihil operarentur.”
- 75.
Sozzini 1579 (as n. 64), 3 cons. 111, fols. 142va–43ra. The quotation is: “fiat ad effectum ut mulier alere possit se, maritum, et liberos … et ut dos ponatur in tuto ad finem, poterit faciliter provideri huic effectui, ponendo dotem apud mercatores ad honestum lucrum.”
- 76.
Sozzini 1579 (as n. 64), 3 cons. 111, fols. 142va–43ra: “ex quo non de facili invenitur apud quem pecuniae sint in tuto et possit fructus percipere cum saepe isti mercatores efficiantur falliti, ut experientia docet.”
- 77.
Kirshner 1991 (as n. 10) 87.
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Kuehn, T. (2016). Property of Spouses in Law in Renaissance Florence. In: di Renzo Villata, M. (eds) Family Law and Society in Europe from the Middle Ages to the Contemporary Era. Studies in the History of Law and Justice, vol 5. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-42289-3_5
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