Jewish Inheritance
Dowries and Wills in Western Mediterranean Europe (14th-18th Centuries)
By (author) Asunción Blasco Martínez By (author) Chloé Bonnet By (author) Javier Castaño By (author) Miriam Davide By (author) Michaël Gasperoni By (author) Marina Girona Berenguer By (author) Laura Graziani Secchieri By (author) Irene Llop-Jordana By (author) Samuela Marconcini By (author) Isabelle Poutrin By (author) Pinchas Roth By (author) Pierre Savy By (author) Kenneth Stow By (author) Dora Zsom Edited by Javier Castaño Edited by Michaël Gasperoni Edited by Isabelle Poutrin Edited by Pierre Savy
Hardback (Published)
(July 2026)
ISBN: 9791257010737
Price: $60.00
On back order
This volume examines wealth transmission in Jewish societies of the western Mediterranean between the 14th and 18th centuries, focusing on dowries and wills as central instruments. It explores how families organized property transfers, articulated matrimonial strategies, and managed inheritance disputes across diverse legal, social, and religious settings. Situated at the intersection of Jewish law, communal norms, and Christian legal frameworks, these practices generated tensions while also enabling negotiation and legal adaptation. In contexts marked by conversion, expulsion, and migration, they reshaped family structures and rights. Drawing on a wide range of sources, the volume conceptualizes inheritance as a continuous process from betrothal to succession.
- Javier Castaño and Michaël Gasperoni, Dowries and Inheritance in Jewish Societies of the Western European Mediterranean: A Historiographical Survey
- I. Women, Families, Community: Strategies, Negotiations, and Conflicts
- Asunción Blasco Martínez, “Protecting What is Mine”: Negotiations among the Jews of Aragon before the Marriage Contract
- Irene Llop-Jordana, Matrimonial Strategies and Dowry in the Jewish Community of Vic: The Case of the Mallorca Family
- Marina Girona Berenguer, A Resilient Widow Claiming for Her Marital Rights and Assets: Çinha and the Abenfarax Family (Medina del Campo, 1485-1504)
- II. Dowry: Transmission and Inheritance
- Chloé Bonnet, Transmission, Management, and Protection: Jewish Women and Their Dowries in Catalonia and Roussillon in the 13th and 14th Centuries
- Pierre Savy, Jewish Transmission in the Princely States of Northern Italy (Late 14th-16th Century)
- Miriam Davide, Jewish Inheritance Patterns in the Framework of Christian Legislation in 14th- and 15th-Century Northern Italy
- III. The Legal Status of Inheritance
- Pinchas Roth, Inheritance and Sale of Synagogue Seats in Medieval Europe
- Dora Zsom, The Inheritance of Convert Jews in Legal Queries from the 15th and 16th Centuries in the Mediterranean Sephardic Context
- Kenneth Stow, A Sign of Changing Times: Tranquillo Corcos on Jewish Inheritance
- IV. Conversion and Devolution of Dowries
- Isabelle Poutrin, Mille scudi. The Dowry Claim of a Young Convert against Her Grandfather Ugo Boncompagni (Rome, 1608-1614)
- Laura Graziani Secchieri, Patrimonial Devolution vs. Abjuration: Consequences of Apostasy on Jewish Family and Social Economics in the Ferrara Ghetto
- Samuela Marconcini, The Conversion of Jews and the Struggle for Inheritance Rights in Early Modern Livorno: The Ergas-Fortunati Case
- Index of Names
- Index of Places
- The Authors
- By (author) Asunción Blasco Martínez
- By (author) Chloé Bonnet
- By (author) Javier Castaño
- By (author) Miriam Davide
- By (author) Michaël Gasperoni
- By (author) Marina Girona Berenguer
- By (author) Laura Graziani Secchieri
- By (author) Irene Llop-Jordana
- By (author) Samuela Marconcini
- By (author) Isabelle Poutrin
- By (author) Pinchas Roth
- By (author) Pierre Savy
- By (author) Kenneth Stow
- By (author) Dora Zsom
- Edited by Javier Castaño
- Edited by Michaël Gasperoni
- Edited by Isabelle Poutrin
- Edited by Pierre Savy
Other Titles in this Series
Mediterranean Crossings
Sexual Transgressions in Islam and Christianity (10th-18th Centuries)
Volume 18
Union in Separation
Diasporic Groups and Identities in the Eastern Mediterranean (1100-1800)
Volume 1
Disciplined Dissent
Strategies of Non-Confrontational Protest in Europe from the Twelfth to the Early Sixteenth Century
Volume 4
Political Objects in the Age of Revolutions
Material Culture, National Identities, Political Practices
Volume 21
A Description of All Spain
De situ, longitudine, forma et divisione totius Hispaniae libellus
Volume 5
Marriages and Alliance
Dissolution, Continuity and Strength of Kinship (ca. 1750-ca. 1900)
Volume 13
Gorbachev, Italian Communism and Human Rights
Rethinking Political Culture at the End of the Cold War
Volume 24
Moving Around in Town
Practices, Pathways and Contexts of Intra-Urban Mobility from 1600 to the Present Day
Volume 15