Women, wealth, and community in Perpignan, c. 1250-1300

"Women, Wealth, and Community in Perpignan, c. 1250-1300 investigates the gender system at work in medieval Perpignan. Using a series of notarial registers - unique as surviving records for the social history of the thirteenth-century realms of Aragon and Majorca, the political confederations to which this town belonged - Rebecca Lynn Winer opens a window onto the experiences of women and their families. Her interpretive framework reveals medieval assumptions about the distinct natures of Christian, Jewish, and enslaved Muslim women by analyzing which actions were curbed, controlled, or fostered in these different groups. Sensitive to questions of social rank and marital status, the book departs from traditional women's history by asking how a woman's religious identity factored in determining her economic and legal options in this society."--Jacket.