Women Owning Land

The combination of male-line primogeniture and the high importance placed on military service above other types of service means that women are often disadvantaged when it comes to land ownership. That said, it is far from impossible for women to own land outright, and even lands which are not owned outright by a woman will often have important decisions relating to them made by women. This is true at higher levels of society too. Notable examples of powerful women from around this period include Urraca, Empress of All the Spains (who reigned over three Spanish kingdoms from 1109 to 1126), Queen Melisande of Jerusalem (who co-rules the Crusader kingdom of Jerusalem with her husband Fulk from 1131 to 1153)… and, of course, Queen Matilda of England.

Here’s several ways in which women can find themselves owning or managing land:

Wives acting as regents for their husbands: A nobleman has many calls on his time and will often be away from his lands. Even humble vassal knights will owe their 40 days of military service, and any deeper involvement in politics will likely distract them even more. Whenever a noblewoman’s husband is away from his lands, she rules as regent and speaks with his authority. Moreover, if a husband is much less skilled at land management than his wife and knows it, or is too ill, injured, or otherwise incapacitated to take much of a role in managing the manor, he may choose to defer to his wife.

Daughters inheriting from parents: Where a noble dies with no legitimate sons, the legitimate daughters will inherit - but that which is received by married daughters will be held by their husbands, not them, unless they become widowed. If your sisters have all been married off and received their marriage-portion, you may well end up inheriting what remains outright. King Henry considered the principle of daughters inheriting if no sons remain important enough that at the start of his reign he promised to enforce it among his vassals.

Widows inheriting from husbands: Military service brings its risks, in a time period when simple illness and accidents take a heavy toll in addition to that. After the demise of your husband, you retain control of both the marriage-portion of land your husband was given at your wedding, and the dower of land that your husband assigned to you at the same time. (If your husband did not nominate a specific amount of land as your dower, then it comes to a third of his lands.) If you inherited land from your father which was then held by your husband, you get control of that too.

Of course, as inheritor it is to be expected that you will be part of the feudal chain of vassalage; you can expect to hold land inherited from your parents in the name of your parents’ liege, and land inherited from your husband in the name of their heir (or your husband’s liege if there is no heir). This could mean that you are technically a vassal to your own child. If they have attained their majority already, this could be a happy relationship where you are one of their closest and most beloved advisors, or a really awkward one, depending on how you and your child get along. If they are still minors - under fifteen, the age at which as per King Henry’s laws you can raise an action or sit in judgement in court - this gives rise to another way in which women can exert control over land.

Widowed mothers acting as guardians for their child: A minor who is heir to a dead noble must go into wardship until they attain their majority and take full control of their inheritance. The choice of who is to take in this ward is a tricky one - especially if the person in question stands to gain if some nasty “accident” were to happen. King Henry laid out clear guidance on this at his coronation: widows should be the guardian of the heir and all the heir’s lands, unless justice suggested that some other relative should be guardian instead.

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