Barbara Hanawalt, The Wealth of Wives: Women, Law, and Economy in Late Medieval London.

Hanawalt, Barbara. The Wealth of Wives: Women, Law, and Economy in Late Medieval London. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.

Hanawalt's book is an intriguing study of wives in late medieval London. Hanawalt's approach in this book digresses from other studies on the economic contributions of women which focus on women as laborers and tradeswomen. Instead, Hanawalt argues that the larger economic contributions by women come in their roles as wives and widows, allowing for the horizontal circulation and concentration of wealth. Hanawalt focuses this study in London due to its unique patrilineal conditions. Specifically, the legal conditions of late medieval London ensured the inheritance of wealth to wives and female children to ensure dowry in future marriages. Hanawalt suggests that this comes in part out of concern that, after a husband dies, his inheritance may not properly pass to his children, especially his daughters who need stable dowries to make stable marriage matches. Thus, Hanawalt argues that the legal conditions of late medieval London allows wealth to remain liquid and provides the capital and circulation of wealth that greatly enables the economic growth of London in this period. 

Hanawalt's book already features in my thesis and will likely feature largely in my dissertation, if for slightly different reasons. One aspect that stood out to me on this read through was the necessity of both dower and dowry in London marriages, that it was as important for the husband to bring a presumably equal financial asset to the marriage as the wife. These assets may differ significantly in type, taking the form of real estate instead of liquid assets, but this adds an interesting component to the economic aspects of late medieval English marriage, which I hope to explore in more detail in my dissertation.