[213] The twelfth- and thirteenth-century fueros have permitted acquaintance with many of the distinctive types of women who settled or were born in the highly privileged towns of Reconquest Castile. The frontier held out fresh prospects and new beginnings for both men and women, but everywhere women were drawn most especially to the prospering towns. A well-defended town of course afforded special protections against manifold dangers and raised hopes for relative comforts. It also gave decided promise of life in society. In a town, above all, a woman could thrive and be in the centre of things.

Some townswomen aspired, together with their fathers, husbands and brothers, to be classed among the lesser nobility of the kingdom. Not a few succeeded in this endeavour although their backgrounds may have been quite modest. These and other townswomen became substantial owners of local property, both in their town and its surrounding and interlocking countryside. An affluent property owner characteristically lived within the walls of a municipal community. She managed a household establishment which was at times extensive and employed primarily female help to assist her with domestic chores. She was, however, no stranger to the countryside since she moved back and forth between town and alfoz to look after her rural property, livestock and agricultural employees outside the walls. Less prestigious village women also circulated between village and town to sell produce and attend to other errands in the municipal centre. It was doubtless most ordinary to see women riding or leading their mules to and from a town. Just as commonplace would have been the spectacle of small groups of women clustered at streams, springs and the other municipal locales they called their own. Most townswomen bore heavy household responsibilities but also worked in family trades and crafts or pursued independent occupations to [214] support themselves and their families. They ran inns, shops and small businesses and worked prominently as vendors of merchandise. Others took in washing or found employment as housekeepers, nurses and maids in the households of more prosperous citizens. Some of the latter were women who possessed substantial capital assets in land and livestock, wore fancy clothes when they could, and claimed to have jewels. Most townswomen were Christians but some were free Muslim and Jewish women while Muslim slavewomen filled out the ranks of domestics and labourers. Also characteristic figures on the municipal scene were the domiciled mistresses of young townsmen and clerics. Although far less meritorious than maidens, married women or widows, they were certainly not to be classed with those outside respectable society, among women who flaunted conventions or the resourceful individuals who schemed to prosper from cunning and ingenious enterprises. The fueros draw our attention to these and other types of women in a wide variety of relationships with their relatives and neighbours of both sexes. They, no less than men, shaped the society of their communities and wove bright colours into the tapestry of life in a Reconquest town.

Women, above all, were the indispensable agents of transformation in the process by which a mere fortress of soldiers became a permanently inhabited town. This vital alteration in the character of colonial settlements was repeated at many sites over many generations, enabling Christian society to flourish in the new lands gradually incorporated by conquest into the expanding kingdom. Warfare accentuated differences between the functions, activities and expectations of men and women but, since colonization was a key objective in any annexation of territory, women contributed significantly to the enterprise. Colonization made conspicuous demands upon them. Mothers were crucial to the process and assured the growth of population at any new community. Settlement policy, moreover, stressed emphatically the need for matrimony and conjugal residence by a man with his wife. It was hoped and expected that domiciled wives and children would tame the restless and ambitious male's propensity for mobility in the continuing quest for fame and fortune. Women gained status, meaning a highly respected position in municipal society, as the responsible custodians of their household's and town's material, as well as reproductive, assets. The conjugal household was the fundamental unit of settlement, community obligations, production and social organization, and women [215] were essential to its operation. From the beginning, then, women as a group assumed indispensable biological and economic functions as well as most significant social and even moral responsibilities in the settlement of highly privileged townships.

Custom acknowledged conspicuously the important contributions women made to the development of a town, notwithstanding the prevalence of traditional doctrines asserting the principle of masculine superiority and despite the persisting demand for soldiers in municipal communities. Both tradition and warfare emphasized the primacy of the male sex, but Christian women were credited with transmitting to their children the blood of their valorous ancestors. Other more practical tributes, however, in the form of substantial rights and protections, also awaited women in the towns. They, no less than men, were firmly anchored into the property structure of every colonized town. Daughters typically inherited most kinds of municipal wealth on an equal footing with their brothers. Female inheritance placed daughters at the very heart of the colonization process, and the ownership of property constituted the basis of privileged residence in a town. Sometimes a woman's assets were the mainstay of her family, especially since leading townsmen encouraged their daughters to remain in their home towns after they married. These women had a strong voice in decisions affecting their families, as exemplified by the role of mothers in the selection of their daughter's husbands. One is led to suspect that few such women readily tolerated much bossing around at home, perhaps least of all by an autocratic husband.

Towns were solicitous of a woman's property rights, not only of the local heiress or bereft widow but of any municipal wife. Even when she was not a native daughter and failed to inherit parental property in the town where she lived with her husband, she was entitled to half of everything the couple earned or acquired during marriage. This widespread matrimonial regime was exceptionally favourable to women, even by many modern standards. It acknowledged their importance in the accumulation and management of family assets and strengthened perceptions of marriage as a cooperative team rather than a hierarchical partnership. The ownership of land and other municipal wealth by women, whether as daughters, wives or widows, was at once a reflection and source of their prominence in municipal colonization and development.

The property and other legal rights of townswomen were broadly [216] protected in the towns, particularly against persons who sought to take advantage of them. Women asserted and expected their fellow townsmen to defend their highly advantageous privileges as colonizers, not merely as wives and mothers but as municipal citizens with substantial stakes in the harmonious and cooperative development of their community. A woman frequently needed assistance, however, and she depended first on her family and then on her husband to look out for her interests. Since the latter was not always present and did not invariably evince the sense of responsibility which conjugal and municipal duties ideally instilled in husbands, a townswoman could turn elsewhere for support. Her own relatives or an employer might sometimes be counted on, but she also looked to municipal officials, the town court, public opinion and her neighbours, sometimes especially to other townswomen when she needed allies. Female friends and supporters could be most vital in times of trouble or when the men she depended upon were away. Medieval townswomen were unlikely to be timid, retiring and incapable creatures. On the contrary, they were evidently outspoken, high-spirited and self-reliant individuals. Their vulnerability to manipulation by others was nevertheless widely recognized, doubtless owing to the notably competitive character of relationships among the citizens of municipal communities and to the wider experience and effectiveness of men in handling many practical matters, especially confrontations with other individuals. Yet townswomen did not therefore shrink from asserting their prerogatives themselves, whether in the courts or in the streets, and many were evidently litigious, combative and temperamental, especially when challenged by some other woman.

The physical safety of townswomen remained a conspicuously urgent concern in the towns, although problems did not arise primarily from the Muslim menace. Open and subtle forms of mistreatment by men and other women point inescapably to widespread sexual exploitation. Prevailing attitudes toward prostitutes, unwed mothers, and women in the religious minorities plainly indicate this tendency in Castilian society at large. So, too, does the illegal harassment and abuse to which townswomen of low status could be, subjected by men of higher class. Many women were perhaps unavoidably regarded by many men as little more than belongings of diverse worth to be appropriated like any other kind of booty to which a victorious soldier, especially a hero, was entitled. [217] When a man wanted to marry a girl, he might simply seize her, or merely use and then cast her aside. Castilian men as a whole could not be trusted to treat women with the respect and dignity townsmen obviously desired for their own wives and daughters. A woman could be prize, prey or spoils. Whether a protected treasure or a tempting challenge, she appears quite often to have been regarded as property belonging to someone else: to another man, family, household or municipal community. Residence in a town improved many women's chances to avoid mistreatment, if not necessarily the awkward position of becoming a trophy, but some women, barraganas and alcahuetas for instance, turned sexual exploitation to advantage. Matrimony was certainly encouraged as a protection against it. Marriage to a responsible and even possessive husband was probably in many cases an effective shield against potential aggressors, but the relative scarcity of women in many communities did not prevent married women, as well as others, from becoming objects of contention between competitive men. A clever woman would, of course, make the most of this circumstance.

This dearth of women, particularly in new towns, had social consequences beyond the immediate areas where the demand for women was most acute. Unfortunately we cannot actually plot the changing sex ratio in young communities to discover how long it remained unbalanced. Men, however, invariably outnumbered women in the early years of any fresh settlement, certainly through the first generation of colonizers and probably longer. Girls at many towns would have a choice of husbands at a very early age, certainly too young to be trusted with the consequences of making the selection themselves. Their scarcity placed townswomen in a highly favourable position in the marriage market, so that concern about having to amass a sufficient dowry and the resulting dread which Dante attributed to Italian fathers at the birth of a daughter would not seem to have typified the sentiments of a girl's parents in Castile. Here men vied for municipal brides while the successful groom bore the wedding expenses and provided his new wife with her endowment. Her family was expected to furnish her with a trousseau, but it did not necessarily make sizeable contributions toward the immediate support of the young couple or grant the groom control over the bride's assets. Matrilineal inheritance and the emphatic safeguards designed to keep a married woman's property within reach of her relatives were materially advantageous to them but socially as well as [218] economically beneficial to her. Certainly a girl's parents were not obliged to compromise her and their interests in order to be rid of her, least of all by foisting her on some irresponsible ne'er-do-well. We hear relatively little about wife-beating and more about the mistreatment of wives by persons other than their husbands. Suspiciously possessive husbands perhaps abounded, together with opportunists who preyed on vulnerable women and silver-tongued libertines who sought female companionship in towns, but the difficulties a man encountered in obtaining a wife, the lengths or distance he might go to obtain one, and the possibility that girls and even wives might run away with men they preferred doubtless improved many a daughter's chances both of making her opinions felt in her family's matrimonial counsels and of marrying a man who would neither abuse nor disappoint her.

Since wives were a necessary asset but often extremely difficult to acquire in a town, they were the most prized among townswomen and thus the most esteemed and privileged women of a municipality. Marriageable women in particular were at a premium in new towns, and the most desirable remained difficult to obtain even in well-rooted settlements. Abduction was one solution to the shortage and a way around the covetous control which municipal families exercised over their daughters' futures. Misalliance was to be avoided at home but Castilian families, perhaps fearing the worst, seemingly discouraged instinctively their daughters from leaving home for the unknown. The majority of the women who did were probably those disreputable sorts from whom the respectable townswoman sought so emphatically to keep her distance. Certainly one perceives that wives and daughters consciously avoided association with women they disdained, fearing perhaps contamination. Strait-laced, high-toned sennoras, however vital to a community, were doubtless in the minority at most young communities, but it was not only here that the possession of women became a battleground between men. Gold and glory were available, but to obtain them a man needed both a horse and a wife, and the best of both could be costly.

Some women were of course in demand for their beauty, virginity and other personal charms, but local connections and wealth were certainly attractive for many men intent upon acquiring the privileges of residence in a town. Families clearly preferred girls to marry at home, but such a marriage did not automatically confer extensive privileges or esteem on the husband. He himself had to meet [219] exacting requirements to become a knight, hold office and gain acceptance as a man of merit and importance in the community. Women, in contrast, could more easily improve their position by marrying well, or even by living with a man and bearing his children.

These possibilities for gaining social and economic advantages were important to women who had far fewer opportunities than men for winning significant public honours through their own personal achievements. Prestige and respect awaited the woman who married advantageously although she need not have been born into a notable or prosperous local family. The widow of an important alcalde was a municipal citizen of consequence and distinctly different from the poor widow obliged to live by her wits or on family charity. The alcalde's widow would perhaps not command the same deference she had known as his wife, but she would still enjoy more renown than numerous townswomen and, no less important, greater than many male citizens of her community. It would surely have been rash to cross such a woman incautiously. The status a woman acquired through marriage cut across measurements of distinction derived from property, wealth, office-holding and other more objective determinants of a man's or woman's position in a particular town. The fact that a woman's standing often depended upon that of her husband or other sexual partner, rising or sinking in accordance with his, was an evident cause of vexation among long and well-established townswomen who, as social arbiters within the female populace, easily resented the pretensions and success of upstarts and the social climbers in their midst.

Towns offered diverse opportunities to medieval women, and many sought the advantages of living in a town. These were considerable, especially for a hard-working peasant woman of rural Castile who had lived previously as the tenant of some rural landlord. Women who dwelled in villages within municipal townships were privileged by comparison, but residence within the walls offered women greater safety, more varied and less taxing opportunities for employment and, perhaps above all, wider social horizons and the companionship of other women. Women doubtless enjoyed living in towns. Owing to multiple hazards, however, they moved less rapidly than men, lagging behind in migrating into the new communities of their generation. An established municipality, in contrast, was a most attractive destination for most women. Those who arrived relatively early in the history of a settlement were doubtless a vigorous, capable [220] and ambitious breed who soon developed, if they did not already possess, the skills to manage, besides a house, rural properties, herds, workshops and almost any other kind of municipal asset. Although they perhaps instilled such capabilities in their daughters, these certainly had an easier time than their mothers who moved there, and some succeeded in leading quite comfortable and pleasant lives. All the qualities which made urban living desirable to women became more attractive after a generation or two.

For as long as Castile was expanding and new fortunes were to be made somewhere else, there was a good chance that the roughest elements in a community would move on. This, too, made life easier for the women who stayed behind. Peasant and lower-class townswomen had greater incentives to migrate than those with established roots. As a settlement aged, a townswoman lacking substantial property and family connections would find fewer chances to improve her position dramatically, either by inheriting wealth or marrying well. Certainly the finest and grandest townswomen, although not necessarily the richest, cleverest or most ambitious, must have inhabited older communities. The long persistence of frontier society, however, afforded even ordinary women challenging opportunities to better their lot in life and to stake claims to substantial wealth and privilege. New prospects promised a fresh start, held out hopes perhaps for unaccustomed respectability, or nurtured a woman's desires for recognition as a person of no small importance. Expansion, the continuing need for colonizers, the scarcity of women at new settlements and a fluid class structure sustained diverse aspirations among many medieval women. These conditions began to change overall in the fourteenth century, perhaps inevitably to the detriment of the female population, at least for those women whose fathers or mothers had not made the best of their chances in this frontier society, above all in the towns to which courage, hopeful expectations and even headstrong emotions spurred Castile's medieval daughters.