A. Skilled Trades or Crafts.
The origin of the Craft Gilds is obscure. They were preceded by Religious Gilds in which men and women who were associated in certain trades united for religious and social purposes. Whether these Religious Gilds developed naturally into organisations concerned with the purpose of trade, or whether they were superseded by new associations whose first object was the regulation and improvement of the craft and with whom the religious and social ceremonies were of secondary importance is a disputed point, which, if elucidated, might throw some light on the industrial history of women. In the obscurity which envelopes this subject one certain fact emerges; the earlier Gilds included sisters as well as brothers, the two sexes being equally concerned with the religious and social observances which constituted their chief functions.
As the Gilds become more definitely trade organisations the importance of the sisters diminishes, and in some, the Carpenters for example, they appear to be virtually excluded from membership though this exclusion is only tacitly arrived at by custom, and is not enforced by rules. In other Gilds, such as the Girdlers and Pewterers, it is evident that though women’s names do not occur in lists of wardens or assistants, yet they were actively engaged in these crafts and, like men, were subject to and protected by the regulations of their Gild or Company.
Very little is yet known of the industrial position of Englishwomen in the middle ages. Poll-tax returns show, however, that they were engaged in many miscellaneous occupations. Thus the return for Oxford in 1380 mentions six trades followed by women, viz.—37 spinsters, 11 shapesters (tailors), 9 tapsters (inn-keepers), 3 sutrices (shoemakers,) 3 hucksters, 5 washerwomen, while in six others both men and women were employed, namely butchers, brewers, chandlers, ironmongers, netmakers and kempsters (wool-combers). 148 women were enrolled as ancillæ or servants, and 81 trades were followed by only men.
A similar return for the West Riding of Yorks in 1379 declares the women employed in different trades to be as follows:—6 chapmen, 11 inn keepers, 1 farrier, 1 shoemaker, 2 nurses, 39 brewsters, 2 farmers, 1 smith, 1 merchant, 114 domestic servants and farm labourers, 66 websters, (30 with that surname), 2 listers or dyers, 2 fullers or walkers, and 22 seamstresses.[[298]] In every case these would be women who were carrying on their trade separately from their husbands, or as widows. During the following centuries women’s names are given in the returns made of the tradesmen working in different Boroughs, occurring sometimes in trades which would seem to modern ideas most unlikely for them. Thus 5 widows and 35 men’s names are given in a list of the smiths at Chester for the year 1574.[[299]]
It must be remembered that, except those who are classed as servants, all grown-up women were either married or widows. It was quite usual for a married woman to carry on a separate business from her husband as sole merchant, but it was still more customary for her to share in his enterprise, and only after his death for the whole burden to fall upon her shoulders. How natural it was for a woman to regard herself as her husband’s partner will be seen when the conditions of family industry are considered. Before the encroachments of capitalism the members of the Craft Gilds were masters, not of other men, but of their craft. The workshop was part of the home, and in it, the master, who in the course of a long apprenticeship had acquired the technical mastery of his trade, worked with his apprentices, one or two journeymen and his wife and children. The number of journeymen and apprentices was strictly limited by the Gild rules; the men did not expect to remain permanently in the position of wage-earners, but hoped in course of time to marry and establish themselves as masters in their craft. Apart from the apprentices and journeymen no labour might be employed, except that of the master’s wife and children; but there are in every trade processes which do not require a long technical training for their performance, and thus the assistance of the mistress became important to her husband, whether she was skilled in the trade or not, for the work if not done by her must fall upon him. Sometimes her part was manual, but more often she appears to have taken charge of the financial side of the business, and is seen in the role of salesman, receiving payments for which her receipt was always accepted as valid, or even acting as buyer. In either case her services were so essential to the business that she usually engaged a servant for household matters, and was thus freed from the routine of domestic drudgery. Defoe, writing in the first decades of the eighteenth century, notes that “women servants are now so scarce that from thirty and forty shillings a Year, their Wages are increased of late to six, seven and eight pounds per Annum, and upwards ... an ordinary Tradesman cannot well keep one; but his Wife, who might be useful in his Shop, or Business, must do the Drudgery of Household Affairs; And all this, because our Servant Wenches are so puff’d up with Pride now-a-Days that they never think they go fine enough.”[[300]]
The position of a married woman in the tradesman class was far removed from that of her husband’s domestic servant. She was in very truth mistress of the household in that which related to trade as well as in domestic matters, and the more menial domestic duties were performed by young unmarried persons of either sex. To quote Defoe again, “it is but few Years ago, and in the Memory of many now living, that all the Apprentices of the Shopkeepers and Warehouse-keepers ... submitted to the most servile Employments of the Families in which they serv’d; such as the young Gentry, their Successors in the same Station, scorn so much as the Name of now; such as cleaning their Masters’ Shoes, bringing Water into the Houses from the Conduits in the Street, which they carried on their Shoulders in long Vessels call’d Tankards; also waiting at Table, ... but their Masters are oblig’d to keep Porters or Footmen to wait upon the apprentices.”[[301]]
The rules of the early Gilds furnish abundant evidence that women then took an active part in their husbands’s trades; thus in 1297 the Craft of Fullers at Lincoln ordered that “none [of the craft] shall work at the wooden bar with a woman, unless with the wife of a master or her handmaid,”[[302]] and in 1372, when articles were drawn up for the Leather-sellers and Pouch-makers of London, and for Dyers serving those trades, the wives of the dyers of leather were sworn together with their husbands “to do their calling, and, to the best of their power, faithfully to observe the things in the said petition contained; namely John Blakthorne, and Agnes, his wife; John Whitynge, and Lucy, his wife; and Richard Westone, dier, and Katherine, his wife.”[[303]]
The craft Gilds had either disappeared before the seventeenth century or had developed into Companies, wealthy corporations differing widely from the earlier associations of craftsmen. But though the Companies were capitalistic in their tendencies, they retained many traditions and customs which were characteristic of the Gilds. The master’s place of business was still in many instances within the precincts of his home, and when this was the case his wife retained her position as mistress. Incidental references often show the wife by her husband’s side in his shop. Thus Thomas Symonds, Stationer, when called as a witness to an inquest in 1514 describes how “within a quarter of an hower after VII. a clock in the morning, Charles Joseph came before him at his stall and said ‘good morow, goship Simondes,’ and the said Simonds said ‘good morow’ to hym againe, and the wife of the said Simons was by him, and because of the deadly countenance and hasty goinge of Charles, the said Thomas bad his wife looke whether Charles goeth, and as she could perceue, Charles went into an ale house.”[[304]]
Decker describes a craftsman’s household in “A Shoemaker’s Holiday.” The mistress goes in and out of the workshop, giving advice, whether it is wanted or not.