Can widows live on their dowry? Florence, 15th century

Based on a qualitative reading of the Florentine catasto of 1427 understood as a narrative source, the article investigates the use of dowry during widowhood. After pointing out that, widows in the family usually do not recover their dowry, which remains in the state of credit in the estate of their children and heirs, the article focuses on widows who “leave” the home of the deceased husband and need the dowry to remarry or to sustain themselves. These widows denounce their immediate material impoverishment due to the delays in returning the dowry and to the fact that they “have neither a house nor household goods”. The article highlights some less investigated features of the dowry: its volatility – the dowry appears as a high-risk capital – and its remarkable plasticity between marriage and widowhood. During its life cycle, the dowry often changes form, value and legal status: from credit to full property; from capital entirely handed over to the husband to capital only partially returned to the widow or even squandered and lost; from movable property (received from the father at the time of the marriage) to immovable property taken from the husband’s inheritance; but also, from full property to usufruct or life annuity. Widows participate as investors in the credit market, seeking an income or a life annuity, and they turn to credit intermediaries still little investigated as small shopkeepers and artisans.