Women, Wealth, and Community in Perpignan, C. 1250-1300: Christians, Jews, and Enslaved Muslims in a Medieval Mediterranean Town

This book 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, Rebecca L. 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. Analyzing how class, gender and religious difference shaped everyday practice, the volume constitutes a major contribution to the history of inter-faith relations and medieval studies.

Rebecca Lynn Winer is Assistant Professor at the Department of History, Villanova University, USA.