Daughters of the Alcaldes: Women of Privilege in Medieval Burgos

This thesis contributes to the historiography by locating active women of medieval Spain in sources that reveal the reality of women's actions as opposed to their ideal behavior. Evidence for women's activities comes from charters—legal documents that recorded property transfers—from various religious institutions in thirteenth-century Burgos, the historic capital of the Christian kingdom of Castile. Women participated in 60% of transactions. Empowering factors included connections to urban oligarchs, dense social networks, collective enterprise, and generous inheritances. Women were not inherently disenfranchised as property owners by virtue of sex, though their absence in the roles of witness and guarantor indicates efforts to exclude women from public space. Nonetheless, the valorization of private law and the commitment to patrimonial rights worked in women's favor to counteract (in part) the legal disabilities they faced on account of perceived feminine weaknesses. Socioeconomic status more greatly affected one's economic opportunities than did gender.