Agneta his wife, webster.
Margery, his daughter, webster.
Thomas his servant and
Beatrice his servant.”
It appears also that there were women among the weavers who came from abroad to establish the cloth making in England, for a Statute in 1271 provides that “all workers of woollen cloths, male and female, as well of Flanders as of other lands, may safely come into our realm there to make cloths ... upon the understanding that those who shall so come and make such cloths, shall be quit of toll and tallage, and of payment of other customs for their work until the end of five years.”[[195]]
Later however, women were excluded from cloth weaving on the ground that their strength was insufficient to work the wide and heavy looms in use; thus orders were issued for Norwich Worsted Weavers in 1511 forbidding women and maids to weave worsteds because “thei bee nott of sufficient powre to werke the said worsteddes as thei owte to be wrought.”[[196]]
Complaint was made in Bristol in 1461 that weavers “puttyn, occupien, and hiren ther wyfes, doughters, and maidens, some to weve in ther owne lombes and some to hire them to wirche with othour persons of the said crafte by the which many and divers of the king’s liege people, likely men to do the king service in his wars and in defence of this his land, and sufficiently learned in the said craft, goeth vagrant and unoccupied, and may not have their labour to their living.”[[197]]
At Kingston upon-Hull, the weavers Composition in 1490, ordained that “ther shall no woman worke in any warke concernyng this occupacon wtin the towne of Hull, uppon payn of xls. to be devyded in forme by fore reherced.”[[198]]
A prohibition of this character could not resist the force of public opinion which upheld the woman’s claim to continue in her husband’s trade. Widow’s rights are sustained in the Weaver’s Ordinances formulated by 25 Charles II. which declare that “it shall be lawfull for the Widow of any Weaver (who at the time of his death was a free Burgesse of the said Town, and a free Brother of the said Company) to use and occupy the said trade by herselfe, her Apprentices and Servants, so long as shee continues a Widow and observeth such Orders as are or shalbe made to be used amongst the Company of Weavers within this Town of Kingston-upon-Hull.”[[199]]
Even when virtually excluded from the weaving of “cloaths” women continued to be habitually employed in the weaving of other materials. A petition was presented on their behalf against an invention which threatened a number with unemployment: “Also wee most humbly desire your worship that you would have in remembrance that same develishe invention which was invented by strangers and brought into this land by them, which hath beene the utter overthrowe of many poore people which heretofore have lived very well by their handy laboure which nowe are forced to goe a begginge and wilbe the utter Destruccion of the trade of weaving if some speedy course be not taken therein. Wee meane those looms with 12, 15, 20, 18, 20, 24, shuttles which make tape, ribbon, stript garteringe and the like, which heretofore was made by poore aged woemen and children, but none nowe to be seene.”[[200]]