The Art of Weaving and the Art of Embroidery: Jewish Women’s Professions in a Medieval European Perspective
Zusammenfassung: Dieser Beitrag untersucht die Art und Weise, wie jüdische Frauenhandwerke und -arbeiten in einer Vielzahl von hebräischen, lateinischen und volkssprachlichen Quellen aus dem mittelalterlichen Europa beschrieben werden, und versucht diese Informationen in Forschungsdiskurse über die Rolle der Frauen in der mittelalterlichen Wirtschaft und den wirtschaftlichen Institutionen der christlichen Mehrheit einzubinden. Indem er die Belege sowohl in die Geschichtsschreibung über jüdische Berufe und Gewerbe im Mittelalter als auch in den Kontext akzeptierter Praktiken unter ihren christlichen Nachbar*innen einordnet, zeigt dieser Beitrag verschiedene Wege auf, wie diese doppelte Kontextualisierung zu neuen Forschungsfragen führen kann, sowohl für Wissenschaftler*innen, die sich für die Arbeit von Frauen interessieren, als auch für diejenigen, die sich für die Rolle der Jüdinnen und Juden in der mittelalterlichen europäischen Wirtschaft interessieren.
Abstract: This contribution surveys the way Jewish women’s crafts and professions are described in a variety of Hebrew, Latin and vernacular sources from medieval Europe, and seeks to incorporate this information into discussions of women’s roles in the medieval economy and economic institutions of the Christian majority. Situating the evidence both within the historiography of Jewish occupations and trades in the Middle Ages and within the context of accepted practices among their Christian neighbors, this piece points to different ways in which this double contextualization can lead to new research questions both for scholars who are interested in women’s work and those interested in the role of Jews in the medieval European economy.
Introduction
In Sefer Hasidim, a compilation written in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century, probably in Regensburg,[1] the author praises those who study the less popular laws and customs of Jewish tradition, specifically everything that has to do with death, making use of a parable to explain his position:
“For it is like a man who had (a number of) daughters and (over time) people asked for their hand in marriage (lit. claimed) and he married them and only one daughter was left unclaimed (for marriage). She said to her father: My sisters all have fine professions (omanut), such as weaving (ma’aseh oreg), or embroidery (ma’aseh rokem) and that is why all people were eager (to wed) them and they found husbands, but you trained me in (lit. gave me) a profession that everyone stays far away from, for I weave mourning clothes and/for shrouds. If my profession was clothes for joyous events (bigdei simhah), I would find a husband[2] like one of my sisters. Her father said: ‘I praise you, for everyone will end up coming to you.’”[3]
The narrator of Sefer Hasidim does not resolve the problem facing the woman in question, namely, of finding a marriage partner, rather he reassures her that eventually she will be appreciated, for everyone faces death. While the woman and her concerns are merely an allegory to prove the point the author wanted to address, this article seeks to bring her and the everyday realities of Jewish life in medieval Ashkenaz, glimpsed in this short text, into focus.
The parable presents a woman with a profession, clearly identifying her with the practice of a specific craft, a specialty. The Hebrew word used and repeated, omanut, means craft, a field of knowledge.[4] Moreover, it presents the arts of embroidery, weaving, and making shrouds, as a learned and particular skill. As Sabine von Heusinger and others have argued, industry during the high and late Middle Ages was largely family-based, with goods often produced in and sold from the home.[5] This aspect has often been brought up as an explanation of the professional involvement of women in different crafts, and, following the shift of industry and business out of the home and into factories and other settings, providing one explanation for their gradual elimination from these crafts.[6]
The purpose of this short piece is to survey some of the evidence concerning medieval Jewish women’s economic roles and incorporate this information into discussions of women’s roles in the medieval economy and economic institutions of the Christian majority. Despite some attempts over the past decades to shed light on Jewish women’s professions, little attention has been paid to their importance in understanding the economy of Jewish families and communities in medieval Europe.[7] Most scholarship to date has assumed that Jewish women simply did their part to support their husband’s work, whatever that may have been, and that their work was, as a result, not worthy of separate consideration.[8] In contrast, women’s work in medieval and early modern Europe, especially within urban settings, has long been the topic of serious research, and recently has undergone significant revisions.[9]
Understanding Jewish women’s work requires situating the evidence both within the historiography of Jewish occupations and trades in the Middle Ages and within the context of accepted practices among their Christian neighbors. After detailing both these issues, the first in greater detail and the second more briefly, I will conclude by suggesting ways in which this double contextualization can lead to new research questions both for scholars interested in women’s work and those interested in the role of Jews in the medieval European economy.[10]
Jewish Occupations in Medieval Europe
Much like the sisters in the parable above, embroidering and weaving were skills many, if not most, women were taught.[16] For example, Dulcia of Worms (d. 1196), the wife of the well-known rabbi, Eleazar of Worms, who was killed by two criminals who broke into her house in late November 1196, is said to have taught her daughters how to sew and embroider, but she was herself considered a professional who used her needlework to produce religious artifacts used by Jews, including Torah scrolls, scrolls with other biblical books, such as the five books read on holidays[17] and phylacteries.[18] Dulcia is also presented as a moneylender.[19] As such, she is an example of a businesswoman with a number of subspecialties, foremost among them a producer of religious artifacts and also involved in the world of finance.
Some scholarship on Jewish women as moneylenders has focused on two or three exceptional examples of very wealthy women, such as Dulcia herself, Pucellina of Blois (d. 1171),[20] and recently Margarete of Koblenz (14th century),[21] and Minne of Zurich (14th century).[22] Other scholars have documented small loans, such as those recorded in manuscripts from Piedmont that were studied by William Chester Jordan.[23] In the cases of Pucellina, Margarete, and Minne, this seems to have been these women’s main occupation, but even this is not completely certain. In contrast, in the records found by Jordan or in other accounts, women are mentioned in the sources because of their credit activities, but it is unclear that this was their main occupation. I would suggest that it is likely that in those instances, moneylending was a byproduct of whatever industry they were engaged in, in the framework of which, like Dulcia, they also extended credit to colleagues. It is possible the same is true even for the wealthy women who are described as moneylenders.
Sewing parchment to create religious artifacts, Dulcia’s specialty, fits in well with the categories of the crafts practiced by the women in the parable with which I began. Jewish women who were experts in handicrafts appear in other sources as well. The tax lists from late thirteenth-century Paris feature Jewish and Christian women and their professions. In some cases, it is clear these are family trades, with both husband and wife working together in the profession, in others, the couple is listed as having two professions, or the men and women are listed separately as heads of households. As Nureet Dermer has detailed, thirty percent of the women appear as heads of household. One woman is listed as a basket weaver and another as a silk spinner. There are also men who are listed as tailors.[24]
The presence of women who worked in sewing, embroidering, silk spinning, the making of parchments, and so on is also evident in Sharon Farmer’s research on silk production in medieval Paris. She demonstrated that Jews and Christians worked in close collaboration and that Jews were often those who provided loans for the silk makers. For example, a thirteenth-century guild statute noted that:
“No men or women should send their apprentices or workers to the homes [or workshops] of Jews, workers, or mercers, if the wives [of those Jews, workers, or mercers] do not know the craft.”[25]
This statute underlines the mastery that Jews seemed to have concerning the different stages of silk production as well as a trace of the fear of members from the other religion, as far as allowing men and women to mix freely.
Farmer’s findings thus echo the reality within which Dulcia lived. The Jews in question, men and women, were both experts at their crafts and at providing credit. This statute also alludes to two possibilities. The first possibility is that husbands and wives shared a profession and were both versed in the practice of their family trade. The second possibility referenced here is that only the head of the household had this knowledge.[26] As Farmer demonstrates, the tax lists from Paris suggest there were Jews, men and women, who were skilled in the techniques related to the production of silk and other fine cloths, indicating the professional level some Jewish men and women achieved. This is true for both the Jews who appear in the tax lists and the converts. In contrast, in Dulcia’s case, we know that she was the one skilled in sewing parchment and in moneylending, and her husband did neither. Thus, the sources from both northern France and Germany point to Jewish women as skilled in the production of different handicrafts, from which they were able to earn significant income, sometimes also engaging in moneylending and sometimes working in partnership with their husbands. It is not surprising that moneylending and handiwork went hand in hand, seeing that cloth was a central commodity used as part of credit transactions.[27] In fact, many women probably engaged in some sort of handicraft and maybe also in small-scale lending, alongside additional specialties.
Jewish women likewise engaged in other professions. For example, Jewish women and men appear on tax lists as teachers.[28] In Courtenay’s recent book on Paris, he notes a significant number of medieval Christian French female teachers who ran their own petites écoles.[29] Thus, teaching was a profession shared by both men and women. Jewish women are listed both in local sources and in Hebrew sources as doctors and midwives. Two Jewish women are listed as healers on the Paris tax list. One appears individually, the other together with her husband, who seems to have also been a doctor.[30] There are numerous other instances of Jewish women being referred to as healers, midwives, or “wise women” (sage-femme).[31] Some texts detail their dealings with Jewish and Christian men who were also practicing doctors.[32] In addition, women are mentioned as millers, tavern keepers, chicken sellers, in charge of ovens,[33] and more. Notably, in the sources discovered to date, there are no women listed as a “femme d’argent” or as moneylenders. In many cases, Jewish women, like men, practiced particular professions in the framework of which, like men, they also lent money. Separating occupations from moneylending is both inaccurate and anachronistic, although, of course, there were some people who had their own occupation and did not lend money and others whose main occupation was lending money.[34]
Guilds, Women, Jews, and Christians
The study of Christian women’s roles within the economy, which has been a topic of intense study since the early twentieth century, has undergone much revision over the past decades. Scholars have outlined a trajectory in which women went from being integral participants in and contributors to the family economy together with their husbands or, following their spouses’ death, as widows, to playing much more circumscribed roles.[35] Understanding of guilds and their regulations were central to this conception of the growing limitations on women and their economic activities over time.[36] In addition, an argument that public and private spheres were gradually more and more separated and work was moved outside the house was made to bolster the claim that from the thirteenth century on, women were far less central within the family economy.[37] Silk-making in Paris and in Cologne, where women were known to have been extraordinarily central within the guilds well into the fifteenth century, were often viewed as exceptions to this rule.[38] Nevertheless, most scholars agree that over time, women were gradually marginalized, and the heads of households tended to be, almost across the board, men.
Along with these observations related to women, Sabine von Heusinger, in her study of Strasbourg and other locales, has successfully proven that guilds had less hold and power on urban economies than previously allowed and that there were a significant number of individuals who practiced professions that had been thought to be protected and regulated by guilds.[39] One aspect of the importance of von Heusinger’s work is that it dispels the idea that the exclusion of people who were not part of guilds from specific trades was absolute and allows more flexibility in our understanding of the past. However, von Heusinger did not include Jews in the study. Perhaps it is time for such work to be done using the local archives that have survived. This is important for understanding the roles of Jews within the context of other craftspeople who were not Jewish and also to better evaluate the role of Jews in various professions beyond moneylending.
Returning to the evidence of Jewish women and their artistries, what can the comparison between the evidence of their activities and those of Christians teach us? How does this new understanding of the complexity of Christian urban economies affect our analysis of medieval Jewish economic occupations, and specifically the role of women within them?
Comparison and Questions for Future Research
The growing body of research related to Christian economies, with its increasing nuance, calls for a reexamination of assumptions scholars have made to date concerning Jewish women. One of these assumptions was considered above: moneylending, rather than being a standalone occupation, was often part and parcel of other métiers. As such, one should return to the sources, particularly Hebrew ones, to seek further evidence of the types of crafts that women practiced. For example, many rabbinic responsa define women as noset ve-notenet. The meaning of this term literally is that they “give and take” or, in other words, are occupied with trade.[40] Rachel Furst has recently argued that this category of “merchant” women was one borrowed from ancient Hebrew texts to explain the medieval realities within which the Jews of northern Europe lived and in which women were engaged in a variety of trades, as discussed above.
A second assumption that, based on the brief examples above, would benefit from reappraisal is that business dealings were often segregated according to gender. This phenomenon of business segregated by gender has been described by William Chester Jordan and consequently documented by other scholars.[41] However, the statues from Paris discussed above, along with court records, responsa, and other sources, all indicate that women did business with men as well, revealing the need to look beyond a gendered pattern that undoubtedly existed, especially in the context of specific professions.
While both these issues underline the extent to which Jews were like their Christian neighbors when it comes to the ways they did business, I would like to touch on one area where there seems to have been a difference between the economic activities of Jewish and Christian women. In the tax records from Paris, more Jewish women are noted as heads of household than Christian women.[42] Moreover, more Jewish couples appear together than Christian couples.[43] Following the argument that in the late Middle Ages, there was a gradual shift from family economies in which women were included to male household heads, the inference from the tax lists is that this shift happened later among Jewish families than among Christian families or that Jews should be considered among the other exceptions to the rules that scholars have located.
What is clear is that more research is needed on all of these issues. Moreover, these insights, and our ability to understand the daily lives of those living so many centuries ago, would not have been possible without the groundbreaking work of Sabine von Heusinger. This is a wonderful opportunity to thank her and celebrate her remarkable achievements.
All links have been checked on 24 October 2024.
* Dedicated to Sabine von Heusinger with gratitude and admiration. The research for this article was funded by an Israel Science Foundation Breakthrough Research Grant, “Contending with Crises” 2850/22. My thanks to the editors of this Festschrift and to Judah Galinsky for their comments.
[1] About Sefer Hasidim, see Elisheva Baumgarten, Elisabeth Hollender and Ephraim Shoham-Steiner, Introduction: Sefer Ḥasidim – Book, Context, and Afterlife, in: Jewish History 34 (2021), pp. 1–14, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10835-021-09372-9.
[2] This is translated according to meaning. Literally Ruth 1:12 is quoted: “Turn back, my daughters, go your way; for I am too old to have a husband. If I should say: I have hope, should I even have a husband tonight, and also bear sons.”
[3] Sefer Hasidim, ed. Jcob Wistenetski, Frankfurt am Main 1924, #1. All future references will be noted as SHP. For parallels in the different manuscripts, see: https://etc.princeton.edu/sefer_hasidim.
[4] On Omanut as craft or métier see the Academy of Hebrew Language website: https://hebrewacademy.org.il/keyword/%D7%90%D6%BB%D7%9E%D6%BC%D6%B8%D7%A0%D7%95%D6%BC%D7%AA. For a survey of the use of this word in the High Middle Ages: Sefer Hasidim Database (PUSHD). Sefer Hasidim, Princeton/New Jersey, Princeton University, 2024. For the purpose of this article, I will use the words skill, profession, craft, and specialty interchangeably, although I would assume that different people had a varied mastery of these crafts that made them more or less professional. This is worthy of further study under separate cover; see n. 15.
[5] Sabine von Heusinger, Amt – Familie – Netzwerk: Zur Gestaltung politischen Handelns im 14. Jahrhundert, in: Beziehungen – Vernetzungen – Konflikte. Perspektiven historischer Verwandtschaftsforschung, ed. by Christine Fertig and Margaret Lanzinger, Cologne 2016, pp. 23–36, https://doi.org/10.7788/9783412504793-002; Sabine von Heusinger, Mobilität und Dynamik statt Monopol und Zunftzwang – Die mittelalterlichen Zünfte in Zürich, in: Regulierte Märkte: Zünfte und Kartelle, ed. by Heinrich R. Schmidt, Laurent Tissot and Margit Müller (Schweizerische Gesellschaft für Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte 26), Zürich 2011, pp. 35–52, https://doi.org/10.5169/SEALS-515003; ‘Was nützt die Schusterin dem Schmied?’: Frauen und Handwerk vor der Industrialisierung, ed. by Katharina Simon-Muscheid (Studien zur historischen Sozialwissenschaft 22), Frankfurt am Main/New York 1998; David Herlihy, Opera Muliebria: Women and Work in Medieval Europe, New York 1990.
[6] For the shift between medieval and early modern times, see Herlihy, Opera Muliebria (as n. 5); Martha Howell, The Gender of Europe’s Commercial Economy, 1200–1700, in: Gender and History 20 (2008), pp. 519–538, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0424.2008.00535.x; Martha C. Howell, Women, Production, and Patriarchy in Late Medieval Cities, Chicago 1998; Martha C. Howell, Commerce before Capitalism in Europe, 1300–1600, Cambridge 2010.
[7] See the lack of attention to women in works that seek to outline medieval Jewish economy at large: Joseph Shatzmiller, Cultural Exchange: Jews, Christians, and Art in the Medieval Marketplace, Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the Ancient to the Modern World, Princeton/New Jersey 2013; Julie L. Mell, The Myth of the Medieval Jewish Moneylender, New York 2017, https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-39778-2; Julie L. Mell, The Myth of the Medieval Jewish Moneylender. Volume 2 (Palgrave Studies in Cultural and Intellectual History), Cham 2018; Rowan Dorin, No Return: Jews, Christian Usurers, and the Spread of Mass Expulsion in Medieval Europe (Histories of Economic Life), Princeton 2023.
[8] In addition, as Jordan noted, the records are biased towards the actions of men. William Chester Jordan, Women and Credit in Pre-Industrial and Developing Societies, Philadelphia 1993, https://doi.org/10.9783/9781512804676.
[9] Judith M. Bennett and Maryanne Kowaleski, Crafts, Gilds, and Women in the Middle Ages: Fifty Years after Marian K. Dale, in: Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 14 (1989), pp. 474–501; Sheilagh Ogilvie, The European Guilds: An Economic Analysis (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World 78), Princeton 2019, https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691185101, chapter 5.
[10] On women’s work see: Michael Toch, The Economic History of European Jews: Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages, Leiden/Boston 2013; id., Die jüdische Frau im Erwerbsleben des Spätmittelalters, in: Zur Geschichte der jüdischen Frau in Deutschland, ed. by Julius Carlebach, Berlin 1993, pp. 37–48.
[11] See the survey by Mell, The Myth of the Medieval Jewish Moneylender (as n. 7); Mell, The Myth of the Medieval Jewish Moneylender, Volume 2 (as n. 7); Giacomo Todeschini, Familles Juives et Chrétiennes en Italie à la fin du Moyen Age: Deux modèles de développement économique, in: Annales. Économies, Sociétés, Civilisation 45,4 (1990), pp. 787-817, https://doi:10.3406/ahess.1990.278873; Dorin, No Return (as n. 7).
[12] We await the work of Andreas Lehnertz on the variety of craftspeople. For the time being see his article: Andreas Lehnertz, Dismantling a Monopoly: Jews, Christians, and the Production of Shofarot in Fifteenth-Century Germany Medieval Encounters 27 (2021), pp. 360–386, https://doi.org/10.1163/15700674-12340112.
[13] Rowan Dorin, Banishing Usury: The Expulsion of Foreign Moneylenders in Medieval Europe, 1200–1450, Cambridge 2016; Dorin, No Return (as n. 7).
[14] Daniel Lord Smail, Interactions between Jews and Christians in Later Medieval Provence, in: Medieval Encounters 27 (2021), pp. 418–423, https://doi.org/10.1163/15700674-12340114.
[15] Ibid., p. 417, n. 24.
[16] See for example, SHP #1665. My thanks to Ivan Marcus for referring me to this source. Here women are described in connection to specific expertise, whereas Christians are also referred to as having other expertise.
[17] These are called the five scrolls: the books of Ruth, Esther, Lamentations, Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes.
[18] About Dulcia see Ivan G. Marcus, Mothers, Martyrs, and Moneymakers: Some Jewish Women in Medieval Europe, in: Conservative Judaism 38 (1986), pp. 34–45; Judith R. Baskin, Dolce of Worms: The Lives and Deaths of an Exemplary Medieval Jewish Woman and Her Daughters, in: Judaism in Practice: From the Middle Ages through the Early Modern Period, ed. by Lawrence Fine (Princeton Readings in Religions), Princeton/New Jersey 2001, pp. 429–437; Judith R. Baskin, Dolce of Worms: Women Saints in Judaism, in: Women Saints in World Religions, ed. by Arvind Sharma, Albany 2000, pp. 39–70; Elisheva Baumgarten, Biblical Women and Jewish Daily Life in the Middle Ages (Jewish Culture and Contexts), Philadelphia 2021, pp. 173–175.
[19] For the poem, see the Hebrew version: Avraham M. Haberman, Gezerot Tzarfat veAshkenaz, Jerusalem 1946, pp. 166–168. For an English translation, see Ivan G. Marcus, Mothers, Martyrs and Moneymakers (as n. 18), pp. 43–45; Judith R. Baskin, Dolce of Worms: The Lives and Deaths of an Exemplary Medieval Jewish Woman and Her Daughters (as n. 18), pp. 434–437.
[20] Susan L. Einbinder, Pucellina of Blois: Romantic Myths and Narrative Conventions, in: Jewish History 12 (1998), pp. 29–46, https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02335452.
[21] Andreas Lehnertz, Margarete, Reynette and Meide: Three Jewish Women from Koblenz in the 14th Century, in: Jewish Studies Quarterly 28,4 (2021), pp. 388–405, https://doi.org/10.1628/jsq-2021-0022.
[22] Shatzmiller, Cultural Exchange (as n. 7), pp. 61–72.
[23] William Chester Jordan, Jews on Top: Women and the Availability of Consumption Loans in Northern France in the Mid-Thirteenth Century, in: Journal of Jewish Studies 29 (1978), pp. 39–56; id., Women and Credit in Pre-Industrial and Developing Societies (as n. 8).
[24] Nureet Dermer, The Jews in the Tax Lists (Taille) of Late 13th Century Paris: The Socio-Economic and Cultural Lives of Jewish Men and Women in Christian Neighborhoods, MA Thesis, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem 2018, pp. 53–65 [Hebrew].
[25] Sharon A. Farmer, The Silk Industries of Medieval Paris: Artisanal Migration, Technological Innovation, and Gendered Experience (The Middle Ages Series), Philadelphia 2017, p. 152.
[26] See Grethe Jacobson, Gesetz und Realität in der Geschichte von Handwerkerinnen, in: ‘Was nützt die Schusterin dem Schmied?’: Frauen und Handwerk vor der Industrialisierung, ed. by Katharina Simon-Muscheid (Studien zur historischen Sozialwissenschaft 22), Frankfurt am Main/New York 1998, pp. 53–66; Katharina Simon-Muscheid, Frauenarbeit und Männerehre: Der Geschlechterdiskurs im Handwerk, in: ‘Was nützt die Schusterin dem Schmied?’: Frauen und Handwerk vor der Industrialisierung, ed. by Katharina Simon-Muscheid (Studien zur historischen Sozialwissenschaft 22), Frankfurt am Main/New York 1998, pp. 13–33.
[27] Aviya Doron, Ordinary Debtors, Unexceptional Debt? Non-Elite Debtors and Their Objects in Jewish-Christian Credit Exchange, in: Beyond the Elite: Jewish Lives in Medieval Europe. People, Spaces, Objects and Rituals, ed. by Elisheva Baumgarten, Ithaca, in print.
[28] Isidore Loeb, Le role des Juifs de Paris en 1296 et 1297, in: Revue des Études Juives 1 (1880), pp. 61–71; Dermer, The Jews in the Tax Lists (as n. 24), pp. 53–65.
[29] William J. Courtenay, Rituals for the Dead: Religion and Community in the Medieval University of Paris (The Conway Lectures in Medieval Studies), Notre Dame 2019, pp. 83–84.
[30] See n. 27.
[31] Joseph Shatzmiller, Jews, Medicine, and Medieval Society, Berkeley 1994; Elisheva Baumgarten, Ask the Midwives: A Hebrew Manual on Midwifery from Medieval Germany, in: Social History of Medicine 32 (2019), pp. 712–733, https://doi.org/10.1093/shm/hkz024.
[32] Ibid.
[33] See n. 23. The people who are listed in charge of ovens included those who carried other people’s food to and from central ovens.
[34] For example, on the tax lists there are people noted as “Marc d’argent”, see Dermer, Jews in the Tax Lists (as n. 24), pp. 62, 64.
[35] See n. 5 and 6.
[36] Herlihy, Opera Muliebria (as n. 5); Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, Les femmes dans les espaces publics de la ville italienne. XIVe–XVe siècles, in: Anthropologie de la ville médiévale, ed. by Michael Tymowski, Warsaw 1999, pp. 83–90.
[37] Ogilvie, The European Guilds (as n. 9); Howell, Commerce before Capitalism (as n. 6).
[38] Margaret Wensky, Women’s Guilds in Cologne in the Later Middle Ages, in: Journal of European Economic History 11 (1982), pp. 631–650; Margaret Wensky, Erwerbstätige Frauen in der mittelalterlichen Stadt – Ein Vergleich der europäischen Metropolen Paris, London und Köln, in: Geschichte in Köln 49 (2002), pp. 47–61; Farmer, The Silk Industries of Medieval Paris (as n. 25).
[39] Sabine von Heusinger, Die Zunft im Mittelalter. Zur Verflechtung von Politik, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft in Straßburg (Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte 206), Stuttgart 2009, pp. 71–81.
[40] Rachel Furst, Their Husbands’ Agents and Emissaries: Talmudic Theory and Lived Law in Medieval Ashkenaz, in: Diné Israel 38 (2024), pp. *57–*76; Etelle Kalaora, Social and Economic Aspects in the Lives of 12th to 14th Century Widows in Ashkenaz, MA Thesis, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem 2020, pp. 21–30.
[41] See for example Sarah Ifft Decker, The Fruit of Her Hands: Jewish and Christian Women’s Work in Medieval Catalan Cities (Iberian Encounter and Exchange, 475-1755/7), University Park, Pennsylvania 2022.
[42] Lucie Fossier, L’artisanat parisien à la fin du XIIIe siècle d’après les rôles de taille: critique d’une source, in: Mélanges de l’école française de Rome. Moyen Âge, temps modernes 100 (1988), pp. 125–135, https://doi.org/10.3406/mefr.1988.2961.
[43] The involvement of couples in finances, especially in cases in which these were wealthy families, can be seen in other areas of Jewish life as well. See Elisheva Baumgarten, Practicing Piety in Medieval Ashkenaz: Men, Women, and Everyday Religious Observance, Jewish Culture and Contexts, Philadelphia 2014, pp. 103–137. See also: ead., Heads of the Communities, in: Studies of Leadership Phenomenon in Jewish Communities during the Middle Ages: A Jubilee Festschrift on the Occasion of the Seventieth Birthday of Menahem Ben-Sasson, ed. by Nahem Ilan, Haggai Ben-Shammai and Miriam Frenkel, Jerusalem 2023, pp. 69–87.
[44] For exceptions to the rules, see n. 35.
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