Project Title: Agency, Legal Participation, and the Negotiation of Bonds: Elite Women and the Law in Aberdeen and North-East Scotland, c.1420–c.1570
What was your research about?
This is a study of elite women’s legal agency in Aberdeen and North-East Scotland during the years 1420–1570. Drawing mainly on burgh court records and charter material, it aims to expand our understanding of what constituted ‘legal activity’ in the period. This is done through examining women’s negotiation of the relationships that were available to them in their locality by virtue of their social status, including the marital relationship as well as procuration, guardianship, and other forms of legal representation. The study holds that personhood is not easily divorced from dependence and mutuality, just as strength is not synonymous with independence, so individuals should not be studied without reference to the relationships that facilitated their actions. After an initial contextualising chapter, chapters two through five explore legal roles played by elite women in and around Aberdeen and what relationships supported them in pursuit of their agendas. Chapter two looks at the ability of the region’s most powerful women, a group of countesses, a baronial lady, and a member of the urban elite, to build reciprocal bonds with the Aberdeen burgess community, mainly through patronage. Chapter three investigates the marital relationship of elite women, arguing that women’s granting of consent was a way to conform to the ideal of marital unity, while wives’ use of procurators was an uncontroversial way to subtly undermine this ideal. Chapter four looks at how heiresses navigated relationships with guardians and others who wished to gain temporary or permanent possession of their inheritance. Finally, chapter five brings to light a collection of widowed mothers, their negotiation with their propertied children’s guardians, and their pursuit of their children’s custody.
The thesis pushes back against the neoliberal paradigm which holds that personhood is synonymous with individuality, and proposes that we widen the ‘active – passive’ binary so that independence is not at the core of activity and dependence is not paired with passivity.
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Email: Ebba Strutzenbladh