Women, town councils, and the organisation of work in Bilbao and Antwerp: a north-south comparison (1400–1560)

Abstract

In this article, I compare women's work opportunities in Bilbao, in northern Castile, and Antwerp, in the Low Countries, from 1400 to 1560. I argue that the different organisation of work in the two towns had a great influence on women's economic opportunities. Whereas women in Antwerp often worked alongside other members of their household because of the town's dominant craft guilds, Bilbao's informal trades were open to women on their own, independent of their husband or another male relative. As a result, women in Bilbao are more visible in the sources and were able to exert more influence on the town council.

Review of periodical literature for 2021

“…Evidence from the sales of the goods of sex workers upon their death also suggest these women could accumulate enough wealth to place themselves among the middling sort of their towns, and overall Haemers argues that stews were not marginal places but socially embedded in cities. Through a comparison of the interaction between women and town councils in Antwerp and Bilbao, Vandeweerdt challenges the ‘north–south thesis’, which suggests that women had more economic agency in north‐western as opposed to southern Europe. In an analysis of ordinances and court cases from 1400 to 1560, she demonstrates that, while the regulation of work by craft guilds restricted women's autonomy in Antwerp, women in Bilbao were able to contest their town council more directly as a group.…”