DOUĂ DESTINE FEMININE DIN BANATUL MEDIEVAL: CATERINA ȘI ANA CHEP DE GHERTENIȘ (1400–1450)
TWO FEMININE DESTINIES IN THE MEDIEVAL BANAT: CATERINA AND ANA CHEP OF GHERTENIȘ (1400–1450)

Summary/Abstract: The present research aims to put in light the destinies of two noble women – Caterina and Ana Chep of Gherteniș (mother and daughter), the family of whose belonged to the little county nobility in the medieval Banat. Rather by hazard enough documents have been preserved to confess on the two women so that their life could be reconstituted somehow. The two ladies belonged to the family of the noblemen of Chep of Gherteniș, Caterina by marrying Jacob, one of the noteworthy members of the family, and Ana as a daughter resulted from that marriage. They lived as the documents let us know, during the first half of the 15th century, a period of political challenges and intense military events in the southern border of the Magyar Kingdom, ever and ever attacked by Ottoman advancement. The two women’s husbands in fact were soldiers in the king-emperor’s service, representative presences on the battles, with the armies led by the counts of Timiș; both of them were so in favor with these counts at a given time. Young widows relatively, the two women proved a firm and tenacious personality, well determined to protect their family and familial estate. They managed their lands and belongings in the counties of Caraș, Timiș and Torontal through the help of their servants and the village judges; both of them came into the courts in person or represented by their advocates; they also corresponded with the officials of the kingdom and proved a remarkable fidelity to their husbands’ memory. As common provincial noble ladies, not distinguished personalities of their times, the two women’s destiny might be taken for an identitary sample for all those noble women not very different from the heroines of my issue, still stands covered.

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