“As If She Were His Wife”
Slavery and Sexual Ethics in Late Medieval Spain
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20064943 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Debra Blumenthal (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2010 |
| Pages | 179-189 |
| Publication date | 2010-01-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | CHAPTER |
| Venue | Beyond Slavery (SOURCE_BOOK) |
| Publisher | Palgrave Macmillan US (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1057/9780230113893_11 |
| OpenAlex | W2466689928 |
| ISBN | 9780230113893 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 6 |
In 1476, a Russian slave woman named Rosa appeared before a royal court in the city of Valencia and demanded her freedom. Describing how she and her late master had slept together in the same bed and "ate together at one table," Rosa's legal representative contended that her master had treated her more "like his concubine" (com si fos una concubina sua) than his slave. Indeed, he emphasized, she had given birth to two of his children: a daughter named Lucrecia and a son named Julia. For these reasons, he insisted, she was legally entitled to be awarded "freed" status. Rosa claimed her freedom under the kingdom of Valencia's legal code, the Furs de València, which said: "Any Christian man who lies with his female slave and has a son or daughter by her, that son or daughter should immediately be baptized and both the mother and the son (or daughter) shall be free."1 Countering contemporary prejudices that slave women were sexually promiscuous, Rosa appeared before royal officials and publicly declared herself to be her master's faithful companion and the mother of his children. In the process, she exposed the underlying tensions between slavery's practical reality, namely the absolute authority masters had over their slave women, and the demands of Christian ethics, that is, how a "good Christian" ought to treat the mother of his children
Art · Daughter · Genealogy · Kingdom · Political science · Wife · Classics · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Historical Legal Studies and Society · History · Law · Philosophy · Religious studies
| Citations per year | 0.13 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2011 - 2024 (14) |
| Highly cited | No |