Un nuovo sguardo sulle donne nel crepuscolo dell’Impero Romano d’Occidente attraverso il prisma delle Novellae di Maioriano

This contribution employs a focused reading of Majorian’s Novellae V, VI, VII, and IX (458–459 CE) to reconstruct the Late‑antique legal positioning of women across consecration and virginity, marriage and dowry, widowhood and succession, municipal endogamy, and the criminal regulation of rape and adultery. Framed within the political‑ecclesiastical crises of the fifth century, it illuminates how these constitutions combined emergent protections with demographic‑fiscal controls over elite lineages. In dialogue with Rosalía Rodríguez López’s Mujeres en los difíciles tiempos del Imperio Romano de Occidente: Nov. Mai. 5, 6, 7 y 9 (458–459 d.C.), the essay uses that documentary horizon to recast Majorian’s measures as a prism for reading gender, property, and public morality at the twilight of the Western Empire.