The marriage exchange [electronic resource] : property, social place, and gender in cities of the Low Countries, 1300-1550 / Martha C. Howell.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Cover; CONTENTS; Foreword; Acknowledgments; Note on Money, Dates, and Names; Introduction -- Le Libert v. Rohard; Chapter 1 -- From Custom to Contract; Chapter 2 -- The Social Context of Custom; Chapter 3 -- Legal Reform as Social Engineering; Chapter 4 -- The Social Logic -- and Illogic -- of Custom; Chapter 5 -- An Alternative Logic; Chapter 6 -- Living with the New; Chapter 7 -- The Weight of Experience; Chapter 8 -- The Douaisien Reform in Historical Context; Conclusion -- Marie, Franchoise, and Their Sisters; Appendix A -- The Evolution of Douai's Douaire Coutumier.

Medieval Douai was one of the wealthiest cloth towns of Flanders, and it left an enormous archive documenting the personal financial affairs of its citizens--wills, marriage agreements, business contracts, and records of court disputes over property rights of all kinds. Based on extensive research in this archive, this book reveals how these documents were produced in a centuries-long effort to regulate--and ultimately to redefine--property and gender relations. At the center of the transformation was a shift from a marital property regime based on custom to one based on contract. In the former, a.