Widows’ Resilience: Dowry Claims by Castilian Jewish Women

Recent scholarship has emphasized the importance of the dowry for the protection of widows, as well as the difficulties encountered by Jewish women in the retrieval of the assets granted to them at the time of their marriage, also in the Hispano-Jewish milieu. Provisions regulating the devolution process among Castilian Jews are documented in communal ordinances throughout the 14^th and 15^th centuries. However, not infrequently, dowries were either taken by the widow’ in-laws, or seized by royal officials to pay off debts left by deceased husbands.

Documentary evidence abounds in the 1480s concerning claims before Christian courts by Jewish women in their attempt to retrieve their seized dowry. Such is the case of doña Çinha, a financier’s widow from Medina del Campo, the seat of the most important trade fair and a sizable Jewish community that initiates legal action before a rabbinical court, in the first instance, as well as at the royal court later on. Her case is not an isolated one and many more instances can be adduced documenting a socio-economic issue that was essential for Jewish families.

The aim of this paper is to examine and analyze unpublished evidence taken from judicial records concerning Jews (and after 1492, neophytes) preserved at the Archivo de la Real Chancillería in Valladolid. The analysis will contribute to a better understanding of the status of late medieval and early modern Castilian Jewish women, the strategies they followed in order to settle their dowries, and the complex judicial practices observed.