Group VII: Morning Gift, gerade, musteil, and Inheritance

Charles G. Nelson Professor, German Russian and Asian Languages and Literatures Madeline H. Caviness Mary Richardson Professor, Art and Art History
Group VII: *Morning Gift, gerade, musteil,* and Inheritance** Landrecht I, 24, 1-3
Oldenburg 19r	Dresden 11r	Wolfenbüttel 17r
Here Eike goes into great detail to codify exactly what constitutes women's property. He identifies four categories: to the morning gift belong all pasture animals, horses, cattle, goats, and pigs who go with the shepherd, and Zaun und Zimmer, an alliterative pair meaning literally "fence and rooms" i.e. house and farm(land). In Landrecht I, 20, 1, Eike defines the morning gift more broadly to include the gift of a servant girl or lad. Fattened pigs belong to the musteil, half of all foodstuffs left in the husband's house after the "thirtieth." For the gerade he then lists a score or more of small scale, domestic, household items. This is an exclusive list, because he adds that anything not in the inventory belongs to inheritance. As if just to be safe on this point, he states that any cloth not cut for women's garments, and any gold and silver not yet worked do not belong to women. The illustrators are not interested in metonymies here. Almost everything in Eike's list is shown. These items operate quite literally to define the women's world, her activities, and ultimately the woman herself.
Home \| Group I \| II \| III \| IV \| V \| VI \| VII \| VIII \| IX \| X \| XI All images used by permission This web site is hosted by the Tufts University Archives and Special Collections Contact the Archives at: University Archives Tisch Library, Tufts University Medford, Massachusetts 02155 / 617-627-3737 Copyright © 1999 Trustees of Tufts College. All rights reserved.