Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-tnzcf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-13T22:26:58.076Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Gender and Peace Intermarriage Between Four Communes in the March of Ancona in 1306

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Didier Lett*
Affiliation:
Université Denis-Diderot (Paris 7)

Abstract

On February 18, 1306, the city of Camerino signed a peace treaty with three neighboring communes (Matelica, San Severino, and Fabriano). Among its provisions was a plan for a series of marriages between the inhabitants of the four communes, which would have made a group of 140 men brothers-in-law through the exchange of 140 women. Analyzing this document and its extraordinary clause—which was never enforced and did not bring hostilities to an end—, this article examines the genesis of a gender regime in a specific historical, documentary, and relational context. Adopting a pragmatic approach to gender as a means for understanding social interactions, the article analyzes the roles elite men assigned to women of their communities in reconciliation rituals, matrimonial alliances as miniature figures of peace, and the systems established to ensure the transfer of dowries and the granting of citizenship. Under such gender regimes, women served as mediators, promoting peace in their households so that it would spread throughout the entire community. They also provided dowries and citizenship to men, allowing them to maintain their dominant role in society.

Information

Type
Gender Regimes
Copyright
Copyright © Les Éditions de l’EHESS 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable