Women, Business and Trade in the Late Middle Ages: Some Notes on the Basque Country

Abstract

Starting from an analysis of the Basque case, this article provides a portrait of merchant women in the late Middle Ages. Their framework for legal action is analysed, and some of the contracts they signed and the judicial procedures that derived from them are assessed. New light is thus shed on the kinds of women that traded, the areas in which they established their businesses, and the circumstances surrounding their activity. They are women of all civil statuses, belonging to a merchant family background, and involved above all in the iron trade and in sea commerce. The factors that conditioned their entrepreneurship either to restrain it (e.g. the period’s mindset and legal limitations) or to foster it (their personal wealth, the trust placed in them by their male relatives, or their personal skills) are delineated.