In medieval Europe, dowries were a central part of marriage arrangements, typically involving the bride’s family providing wealth to her new husband. But new research is turning that assumption on its head—at least for one Catalan city in the later Middle Ages. A study by historian Sarah Ifft Decker uncovers a little-known practice in the town of Vic, where a small but notable number of grooms brought dowries to their brides.
The study, published in Speculum, examined over 1,500 marriage contracts from Vic between 1250 and 1350, finding 80 examples of so-called “gender-reversed” dowries. These were formal arrangements in which men gave dowries to their wives, and the wives, in turn, offered a countergift. The contracts were nearly identical to typical dowry agreements, except that the economic roles of bride and groom were reversed.
For example, in 1293, Jaume de Montcabrer of Terrassola married Maria, daughter of Ramon de Moles of Tona. The notarial contract records that Jaume provided a dowry of 1,000 sous, while Maria offered a countergift worth only half that amount. In a more dramatic case, one groom, Pere de Bellestar, contributed a remarkable 8,000 sous to marry Sança, daughter of Jaume de Sant Hipòlit. In return, Sança brought property she had inherited from her family, namely a castle.
These reversed arrangements were not common, but they were more than anomalies. Ifft Decker argues that they offered solutions for particular social and economic circumstances. Families with daughters who would inherit family property, and who had no brothers, often used these contracts to retain wealth and status within their own household. Instead of sending a daughter into her husband’s family, they symbolically brought the husband into theirs.
The streets of Vic today – photo by Pedro / Flickr
The men who entered these marriages were frequently newcomers to the city or residents of nearby rural villages. They used the dowry as a way to gain access to urban society. In return for the wealth they brought into the marriage, they could marry into more prosperous or better-connected families and establish themselves within Vic’s artisan and merchant networks.
For the bride’s family, there were also clear advantages. A groom’s dowry meant a welcome cash payment at the time of marriage, which could supplement real estate or other less liquid forms of wealth. In addition, the family gained a son-in-law who could contribute to household labour, particularly in urban trades or business ventures.
“I absolutely see these arrangements as win-win for both the bride’s family and for the groom and his family,” Ifft Decker tells Medievalists.net. “Especially since it diverged from standard dowry practices, there probably would have been a higher bar in negotiations to ensure that everyone involved benefited. The one person who may or may not have actively benefited was the bride herself: the advantages for her are less clear, and she was probably less likely to have been consulted.”
Marriage of Ermangardis and Gausfred, Liber Feudorum Maior, fol. 78 v., early twelfth century, Archivo de la Corona de Aragon, Barcelona, Spain. Scene depicting a marriage commitment.
However, even when brides received dowries from their husbands, they rarely managed the family’s financial affairs. Husbands typically retained control over property and wealth, and legal documents continued to treat men as the primary decision-makers within the marriage. This evidence suggests that the dowry system in medieval Catalonia reflected existing gender roles rather than creating them. Although the formal structure of these contracts could be altered, the broader cultural norms around gender remained intact. Women might inherit and own property, but their ability to control it was still limited by social expectations.
Ifft Decker, a Professor of History at Rhodes College, first discovered these records at Vic seven years ago. “I initially came across these records while conducting research for my first book—you can find them scattered among the registers dedicated to marriage contracts in general,” she explains. “I was looking through marriage contracts in order to establish some very basic information as background to my study on women’s work—things like average dowry size and how the notaries described marital finances. The very first time I saw one of these gender-reversed dowry contracts, I initially thought I must be reading it wrong, and then that the notary had made some sort of error! But as I came across more of them, a mistake seemed increasingly less likely—especially once I looked at them more systematically and started to notice patterns. For me, these contracts really highlight the serendipitous nature of archival research—it’s always worth paying attention to the interesting things that you’re not looking for, which can become new projects in themselves.”
Although the practice of grooms bringing dowries declined by the mid-fourteenth century, its presence over several decades shows that medieval marriage was more flexible than often assumed. These reversed dowry contracts challenge the idea that women were always the ones who brought wealth into a marriage. In some cases, it was the groom who had to pay to secure a place in a more prominent family.
“I hope that this article will be interesting and important to medievalists interested in gender and the dowry system more broadly—while Vic is just a single case study, it reminds us that it’s useful to rethink our assumptions every now and then,” Ifft Decker notes. “This case can expand our understanding of what the financial exchanges around marriage accomplish in the context of medieval gender dynamics—and I’m eager to see if other scholars find examples elsewhere that further complicate how we think about dowry and marriage.
“Even for scholars working on other topics, I think this research demonstrates the extent to which people in the Middle Ages were creative, innovative, and not necessarily bound to tradition: they were thoughtful about their own needs and what worked for them, and they were very much willing to maneuver within the legal system and seek out points of flexibility in legal culture to get what they wanted.”
The article, “The Groom’s Dowry: Reconsidering Gender and Dowry in Medieval Catalonia, 1250–1350,” by Sarah Ifft Decker is published in the latest issue of Speculum. Click here to access it.
Top Image: Unknown artist/maker, illuminator and Michael Lupi de Çandiu (Spanish, active Pamplona, Spain 1297 – 1305), scribe Initial L: A Marriage Ceremony, about 1290–1310 Tempera colors, gold leaf, and ink Leaf: 36.5 × 24 cm (14 3/8 × 9 7/16 in.) The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Ms. Ludwig XIV 6, fol. 197v, 83.MQ.165.197v
In medieval Europe, dowries were a central part of marriage arrangements, typically involving the bride’s family providing wealth to her new husband. But new research is turning that assumption on its head—at least for one Catalan city in the later Middle Ages. A study by historian Sarah Ifft Decker uncovers a little-known practice in the town of Vic, where a small but notable number of grooms brought dowries to their brides.
The study, published in Speculum, examined over 1,500 marriage contracts from Vic between 1250 and 1350, finding 80 examples of so-called “gender-reversed” dowries. These were formal arrangements in which men gave dowries to their wives, and the wives, in turn, offered a countergift. The contracts were nearly identical to typical dowry agreements, except that the economic roles of bride and groom were reversed.
For example, in 1293, Jaume de Montcabrer of Terrassola married Maria, daughter of Ramon de Moles of Tona. The notarial contract records that Jaume provided a dowry of 1,000 sous, while Maria offered a countergift worth only half that amount. In a more dramatic case, one groom, Pere de Bellestar, contributed a remarkable 8,000 sous to marry Sança, daughter of Jaume de Sant Hipòlit. In return, Sança brought property she had inherited from her family, namely a castle.
These reversed arrangements were not common, but they were more than anomalies. Ifft Decker argues that they offered solutions for particular social and economic circumstances. Families with daughters who would inherit family property, and who had no brothers, often used these contracts to retain wealth and status within their own household. Instead of sending a daughter into her husband’s family, they symbolically brought the husband into theirs.
The men who entered these marriages were frequently newcomers to the city or residents of nearby rural villages. They used the dowry as a way to gain access to urban society. In return for the wealth they brought into the marriage, they could marry into more prosperous or better-connected families and establish themselves within Vic’s artisan and merchant networks.
For the bride’s family, there were also clear advantages. A groom’s dowry meant a welcome cash payment at the time of marriage, which could supplement real estate or other less liquid forms of wealth. In addition, the family gained a son-in-law who could contribute to household labour, particularly in urban trades or business ventures.
“I absolutely see these arrangements as win-win for both the bride’s family and for the groom and his family,” Ifft Decker tells Medievalists.net. “Especially since it diverged from standard dowry practices, there probably would have been a higher bar in negotiations to ensure that everyone involved benefited. The one person who may or may not have actively benefited was the bride herself: the advantages for her are less clear, and she was probably less likely to have been consulted.”
However, even when brides received dowries from their husbands, they rarely managed the family’s financial affairs. Husbands typically retained control over property and wealth, and legal documents continued to treat men as the primary decision-makers within the marriage. This evidence suggests that the dowry system in medieval Catalonia reflected existing gender roles rather than creating them. Although the formal structure of these contracts could be altered, the broader cultural norms around gender remained intact. Women might inherit and own property, but their ability to control it was still limited by social expectations.
Ifft Decker, a Professor of History at Rhodes College, first discovered these records at Vic seven years ago. “I initially came across these records while conducting research for my first book—you can find them scattered among the registers dedicated to marriage contracts in general,” she explains. “I was looking through marriage contracts in order to establish some very basic information as background to my study on women’s work—things like average dowry size and how the notaries described marital finances. The very first time I saw one of these gender-reversed dowry contracts, I initially thought I must be reading it wrong, and then that the notary had made some sort of error! But as I came across more of them, a mistake seemed increasingly less likely—especially once I looked at them more systematically and started to notice patterns. For me, these contracts really highlight the serendipitous nature of archival research—it’s always worth paying attention to the interesting things that you’re not looking for, which can become new projects in themselves.”
Although the practice of grooms bringing dowries declined by the mid-fourteenth century, its presence over several decades shows that medieval marriage was more flexible than often assumed. These reversed dowry contracts challenge the idea that women were always the ones who brought wealth into a marriage. In some cases, it was the groom who had to pay to secure a place in a more prominent family.
“I hope that this article will be interesting and important to medievalists interested in gender and the dowry system more broadly—while Vic is just a single case study, it reminds us that it’s useful to rethink our assumptions every now and then,” Ifft Decker notes. “This case can expand our understanding of what the financial exchanges around marriage accomplish in the context of medieval gender dynamics—and I’m eager to see if other scholars find examples elsewhere that further complicate how we think about dowry and marriage.
“Even for scholars working on other topics, I think this research demonstrates the extent to which people in the Middle Ages were creative, innovative, and not necessarily bound to tradition: they were thoughtful about their own needs and what worked for them, and they were very much willing to maneuver within the legal system and seek out points of flexibility in legal culture to get what they wanted.”
The article, “The Groom’s Dowry: Reconsidering Gender and Dowry in Medieval Catalonia, 1250–1350,” by Sarah Ifft Decker is published in the latest issue of Speculum. Click here to access it.
Last year, Ifft Decker received the La corónica International Book Award for her book The Fruit of Her Hands: Jewish and Christian Women’s Work in Medieval Catalan Cities. Click here to see her faculty webpage.
Top Image: Unknown artist/maker, illuminator and Michael Lupi de Çandiu (Spanish, active Pamplona, Spain 1297 – 1305), scribe
Initial L: A Marriage Ceremony, about 1290–1310
Tempera colors, gold leaf, and ink
Leaf: 36.5 × 24 cm (14 3/8 × 9 7/16 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Ms. Ludwig XIV 6, fol. 197v, 83.MQ.165.197v
Subscribe to Medievalverse
Related Posts