Some elements of the legal position of women in the Rab statute of the 14th century

In this paper, the author analyses some questions about the legal position of women in Rab’s medieval statute, referring to the appropriate solutions of other Dalmatian statutes. In the introduction, the sources of Rab’s medieval law are stated. Then, questions concerning the legal position of women in terms of status, family (including marital), property and criminal law are analysed. The tendency of community powers to prevent foreigners from gaining property and to prevent the division of family property through dowry are the fundamental causes for the inferior position of women in most community legal systems. As opposed to the other statutes in the Dalmatian legal region, in Rab the wife was legally equal to her husband. She was allowed to contract, will, dispose of her dowry and her inherited share of the family property. Furthermore, after the death of her husband, she was the head of the family The geographical position of Rab situated between the Dalmatian and Kvarner legal region was reflected in the Rab Statute. In it, the influences of numerous legal systems can be noted: Croatian, Venetian, Zadar, and Roman law, and the modernising effect of glossators. All this indicates the existence of the interaction of legal cultures in medieval Dalmatian communes