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In this article Maria Teresa Guerra Medici traces the precedents for the common practice in Europe of entrusting the regency over a ruler who was under age to the mother or other near adult female relative. It can be traced to the succession to the Empire of Otto III in 983, when an attempt by his nearest male relative to claim the regency, with the title of king, instead of the mother, was decisively defeated. It can be shown that there were precedents from the later Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire and from lesser principalities, and that at an early date the practice had been endorsed by the papacy. This happened despite the general rule of law in Europe that a female was incapable of exercising authority. In time, both canon and civil laws came to accomodate themselves to the anomaly, treating female guardianship as legitimate in special circumstances, in effect among families of the highest rank and status, but they never formally attempted to reconcile the apparent contradiction. It seems that the need for dynastic security at that level of society overrode the normal presumption that at all levels and at all times females must be subject to some form of male tutelage.
