ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a template for the range of economic and legal maneuvering possible for a representative Christian woman at each stage in her life. Economic and legal maneuvering include Catalan law codes, wills, grants between parents and children, releases, marriage contracts, declarations of bankruptcy, investment and loan records, property transactions, and legal disputes. The chapter examines the women of Perpignan in the broader Mediterranean context. It argues that women in Perpignan were clearly dominated by a gender system that was built by and for men, even though they occasionally attempted to play a more active role. The chapter also argues that the appearance of women as testators has more to do with their residual rights as daughters and importance as transmitters of wealth as mothers when wives or widows, in a society whose legal foundation was shifting, than it does their enjoyment of economic privileges in and of themselves.
