Les dones en el treball urbà (segles XIV-XV)

Abstract

The drained of thirty nine accounting registries from the Datini Archive in Prato (Italy), of the merchant Francesco di Marco's company, between 1343 and 1416, allows the analysis of the role played by women in-between the urban economy of the low medieval ages. The information extracted from the accounting books gives the medium to make a comparison of the female work between different Mediterranean cities: Avignon, Geneve, Florence, Pisa, Barcelona, Mallorca and Valencia. The study separates the positive or negative situations of the workers, from a financial view, i.e., following if they are in the registries as creditors or as indebted and offers, in parallel, the possibility of showing the social and economic characteristics of women depending on the work done. This contribution seeks to extend our knowledge on the female activities in the medieval economic world and, at the same time, enrich the history of women in Medieval Ages.