Beyond the Registers: Women’s Presence in Medieval Political Life

Why would a man of the law, a prominent medieval notary, opt to counsel his fellow men away from the well-trod path of vendetta by using neither legal documents nor redirection to the courts of law? What is more, why would he use the voice of a woman—who vociferously defends her right to speak on the topic—in a fictional dialogue to accomplish the task? While much of the theoretical deliberation on citizenship took place in the fourteenth century after the reintroduction of Aristotle’s Politics (1260), denizens of the communes were nevertheless entertaining questions of citizenship much earlier. In practice, female citizens were rare to nonexistent (e.g. Perugia in 1285 formally listed 6 female citizens) and they never held any form of public office. Instead, women tended to construct pragmatic alternatives to formal citizenship via ties of kinship, legal structures, or affiliative action. Hunting down these indications of medieval Italian women citizens-in-practice has largely been the preserve of social historians for clear reasons. But I would suggest that literary texts—especially those composed by the notarial architects of the medieval Italian republics —can also offer historical insight on the practice of citizenship in this time and place. Albertano da Brescia’s Liber consilii et consolationis, a dialogue between a man and his wife regarding the ethics of vendetta, offers a glimpse into how women may have taken part in the construction of civic legal and political life. The character of the wife, Prudentia, is more than simply a virtue personified. She betrays a personality beyond personification and her defense of women’s speech reflects the evidence we have for women’s efforts to influence civic life by raising their voices communally in protest.