This study intends to analyse the participation of the married woman
and the widow in the notarial public deed of the 16th century, in Spain, in
light of the notarial forms and treatises of the time and the process itself of
executing a notarial public deed. Visigothic Law would gather, to certain
extent, Roman limitations and the openness brought by the Christian
doctrine, resulting in the different legal systems of High Medieval times,
when the married woman needed a licence from her husband in order to act.
Spanish Law 56 of Toro would regulate the marital licence as a general
system and compulsory requirement for the valid intervention of the married
woman. In the beginning of the 16th century, not a few women executed
notarial deeds and wrote royal letters related to registering as residents,
returning properties and shortening litigations.