Widows as a group are often generalized. It is not uncommon to read that upper-class widows were more independent and had more freedom of action than other women, a statement frequently made without reference to the social, political and familial circumstances of those involved. Such generalizations are not always untrue, but at times they can be harmful. They can lead to assumptions about all women that prevent certain questions from being asked about individual women. The way forward lies in more studies of individual women, to ensure that a more subtle picture of widowhood emerges. Few detailed investigations of noblewomen have been conducted, as Louise Wilkinson has noted: ‘Although female property rights in this period [the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries] have attracted a good deal of interest, studies of the lives of individual women have been lacking.’ This article aims to further redress the deficiency by focusing on the landholding of six Yorkshire widows from the Arches and Percy families who were active in the twelfth century. Widows' actions in disposing of land varied between different women and even with the same woman when in different situations; the alienation of land by a woman was dependent on numerous variables, only one of which was widowhood. By examining a woman's experiences on an individual basis, as Wilkinson has done, ‘the important influences which social status, family relationships and the female life-cycle exerted on aristocratic women’ can be seen.