Convents As Litigants: Dowry And Inheritance Disputes In Early-Modern Spain

Journal of Social History, Spring, 2000 by Elizabeth A. Lehfeldt

Ana Manrique's brother, Antonio, also launched several counter arguments in the face of his sister's demands. [40] One of Antonio's arguments was purely practical and circumstantial. He was about to get married and his impending nuptials involved certain costs that made it impossible for him to meet his sister's expenses. Further, he believed that his sister's claims of illness, which she argued made the payment of alimentos that much more urgent, were groundless.

Antonio also raised an issue centered on the legalities of the mayorazgo. The payments that Ana was demanding of her brother were supposed to come from the mayorazgo that her father had created, yet Antonio questioned the ability of religious women to administer rents or property tied to a mayorazgo. His side, in fact, asserted that religious women were "incapable" (incapaces) of inheriting any portion of the mayorazgo. This assertion brought into dramatic relief how the institution of the mayorazgo could complicate issues of inheritance by raising issues of gender and religion. Technically, the mayorazgo, operating according to a system of primogeniture, was off-limits to female heirs. Yet in practice, daughters were not always entirely excluded from the inheritance of mayorazgos. There is evidence to suggest that parents created mayorazgos for their daughters, though frequently with the expectation that these daughters would marry and thus the property would at least be jointly administered by the husband and wife. [41] In practice, these estates were only rarely intended to become the heritable property of daughters or female relatives. If a woman inherited one it was customary for it to pass quickly to her nearest male relative upon her death. [42] The only official prohibition that excluded a son or daughter from inheriting a mayorazgo was making a religious profession. [43] It was probably this prohibition that prompted Antonio to designate his sister and her convent as "incapable" of administering the mayorazgo.

The court, however, found in favor of Ana and ordered Antonio to pay 2100 reales every year to meet his sister's needs. As an indication of the complexity of Castilian inheritance law, the court was able to offer a powerful counter-argument. Probably in recognition of the legal right, explicated in the Leyes de Toro (a legal code of 1505 that dealt primarily with issues of property and inheritance), that provided that a woman's dowry could be paid, if necessary, from the rents and appraisal of the property contained in the mayorazgo, the court discredited Antonio's claims. [44] The distinction here was between the actual administration of the entailed estate--which would have been legally unacceptable--and the right to payment drawn from property encumbered in the mayorazgo.

Convents seem rarely to have been daunted by extenuating circumstances, even if these drew them into conflict with their religious contemporaries. In 1653 the convent of Santa Catalina filed a lawsuit on behalf of three of its nuns: Mariana de Cordoba and Francisca and Isabel de Silva. The three all claimed to be the heirs of their brother, Fernando. [45] The suit challenged the chaplaincy that their brother had founded at a convent in Madrid. Santa Catalina argued that it was still owed for the dowries and alimentos of the three sisters and the interest that these sums would have been accruing. Ultimately, the convent won and was awarded a sum of 37,000 reales.