Abstract
On March 19, 1350, Ghiselbrecht van Wondelghem came before the aldermen of the Keure in Ghent and appointed Beatrise Blanckaerds to collect a debt owed to him by Jan Braem. After presenting the debt contract, Ghiselbrecht followed a procedure from the city’s oral custom to empower Beatrise to collect the debt.1 There is no explanation for his action, although another act informs us that the two were relatives.2 Five days later, Beatrise took Jan before the aldermen, who ordered him to pay the debt of nine pounds and ten shillings groot (more than a master guildsmen would earn in sixteen months) to her within two weeks. If Jan did not pay, Boudin de Kempe, as his surety, or co-signer, had to pay that amount to Beatrise or suffer imprisonment.3 Having successfully fulfilled her legal and economic role as a collection agent, Beatrise Blanckaerds then disappeared from the historical record, although this was probably only one of her many economic activities.4
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Shennan Hutton, “‘On Her and All Her Property’: Women’s Economic Activities in Late Medieval Ghent,” Continuity and Change 20, no. 3 (2005): 325–49;
E. M. Meijers, Het Oost-Vlaamsche erfrecht, vol. 3 of Het Ligurische erfrecht in de Nederlanden (Haarlem: H. D. Tjeenk Willink & Zoon, 1936);
John Gilissen, La Coutume, Typologie des sources du moyen âge occidental, fasc. 41 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1982), pp. 24–7.
Martha C. Howell, “The Properties of Marriage in Late Medieval Europe: Commercial Wealth and the Creation of Modern Marriage,” in Love, Marriage, and Family Ties in the Later Middle Ages, ed. Isabel Davis, Miriam Müller, and Sarah Rees Jones, International Medieval Research, vol. 11 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2003), pp. 17–61;
Martha C. Howell, “From Land to Love: Commerce and Marriage in Northern Europe during the Late Middle Ages,” Jaarboek voor Middeleeuwse Geschiedenis 10 (2007): 239 [216–53].
Henri Nowé, Les Baillis comtaux de Flandre: Des origines à la fin du XIVe siècle (Brussels: Académie royale de Belgique, 1929), pp. 328, 331.
Jennifer Ward, Women in Medieval Europe, 1200–1500, Longman History of European Women (London: Longman Pearson Education, Ltd., 2002), p. 75.
Willem Blockmans, “Peilingen naar de sociale Strukturen te Gent tijdens de late 15e eeuw,” Studien betreffende de sociale Strukturen te Brugge, Kortrijk en Gent in de 14e en 15e eeuw, by W. Blockmans, I. De Meyer, J. Mertens, C. Pauwelyn and W. Vanderpijpen, Studia Historica Gandensia, no. 139, Standen en Landen, no. 65 (Ghent: U.G.A., 1971), pp. 247–51 [215–62].
Copyright information
© 2011 Shennan Hutton
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Hutton, S. (2011). Activity and Continuity: Patterns of Women’s Economic Participation. In: Women and Economic Activities in Late Medieval Ghent. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230118706_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230118706_3
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-28940-0
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-11870-6
eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)