In later times the feminine form of the word is used in the ordinances of the City of London, clearly showing that the persons who were then carrying on the trade were women; thus it was said “Let no Regrateress pass London Bridge towards Suthwerk, nor elsewhere, to buy Bread, to carry it into the City of London to sell; because the Bakers of Suthwerk, nor of any other Place, are not subject to the Justice of the City.” And again “Whereas it is common for merchants to give Credit, and especially for Bakers commonly to do the same with Regrateresses ... we forbid, that no Baker make the benefit of any Credit to a Regrateress, as long as he shall know her to be involved in her Neighbour’s Debt.”[[455]] Moreover a very large proportion of the prosecutions for this offence were against women. “We Amerce Thomas Bardsley for his wife buyinge Butter Contrary to the orders of the towne in xijid.”[[456]] “Katherine Birch for buyinge and selling pullen [chicken] both of one day 3s. Thos. Ravald wife of Assheton of Mercy bancke for sellinge butter short of waight.”[[457]] “Thomas Massey wife for buyinge a load of pease and sellinge them the same day. Amerced in 1s.”[[458]] “Katharine Hall for buyinge and sellinge Cheese both of one day 6d. Anne Rishton for buyinge and sellinge butter the same day Amercd in 3. 0.”[[459]]
As the Regrater dealt chiefly in food, her business is closely connected with the provision trades, but enough has been said here to indicate that of all retailing this was the form which most appealed to poor women, who were excluded from skilled trades and whose only other resource was spinning. The number of women in this unfortunate position was large, including as it did not only widows, whose families depended entirely upon their exertions, but also the wives of most of the men who were in receipt of day wages and had no garden or grazing rights. It has already been shown that wages, except perhaps in some skilled trades, were insufficient for the maintenance of a family. Therefore, when the mother of a young family could neither work in her husband’s trade nor provide her children with food by cultivating her garden or tending cows and poultry, she must find some other means to earn a little money. By wages she could seldom earn more than a penny or twopence a day and her food. Selling perishable articles of food from door to door presented greater chances of profit, and to this expedient poor women most often turned. In proportion as the trade was a convenience to the busy housewife, it became an unwelcome form of competition to the established shopkeepers, who, being influential in the Boroughs, could persecute and suppress the helpless, disorganised women who undersold them.
C. Provision Trades.
Under this head are grouped the Bakers, Millers, Butchers and Fishwives, together with the Brewers, Inn-keepers and Vintners, the category embracing both those who produced and those who retailed the provisions in question.
A large proportion both of the bread and beer consumed at this time was produced by women in domestic industry. The wages assessments show that on the larger farms the chief woman servant was expected both to brew and to bake, but the cottage folk in many cases cannot have possessed the necessary capital for brewing, and perhaps were wanting ovens in which to bake. Certainly in the towns both brewing and baking existed as trades from the earliest times. Though in many countries the grinding of corn has been one of the domestic occupations performed by women and slaves, in England women were saved this drudgery, for the toll of corn ground at the mill was an important item in the feudal lord’s revenue, and severe punishments were inflicted on those who ground corn elsewhere. The common bakehouse was also a monopoly of the feudal lord’s,[[460]] but his rights in this case were not carried so far as to penalize baking for domestic purposes.
It might be supposed that industries such as brewing and baking, which were so closely connected with the domestic arts pertaining to women, would be more extensively occupied by women than trades such as those of blacksmith or pewterer or butcher; but it will be shown that skill acquired domestically was not sufficient to establish a woman’s position in the world of trade, and that actually in the seventeenth century it was as difficult for her to become a baker as a butcher.
Baking.—After the decay of feudal privileges the trade of baking was controlled on lines similar to those governing other trades, but subject to an even closer supervision by the local authorities, owing to the fact that bread is a prime necessity of life. On this account its price was fixed by “the assize of bread.” The position of women in regard to the trade was also somewhat different, because while in other trades they possessed fewer facilities than men for acquiring technical experience, in this they learnt the art of baking as part of their domestic duties. Nevertheless, in the returns which give the names of authorised bakers, those of women do not greatly exceed in number the names which are given for other trades; of lists for the City of Chester, one gives thirty names of bakers, six being women, all widows, while another gives thirty-nine men and no women,[[461]] and a third twenty-six men and three women. The assistance which the Baker’s wife gave to her husband, however, was taken for granted. At Carlisle, the bye-laws provide that “noe Persons ... shall brew or bayk to sell but only freemen and thare wifes.”[[462]] And a rule at Beverley laid down that “no common baker or other baker called boule baker, their wives, servants, or apprentices, shall enter the cornmarket any Saturday for the future before 1 p.m. to buy any grain, nor buy wheat coming on Saturdays to market beyond 2 bushels for stock for their own house after the hour aforesaid.”[[463]]
A writer, who was appealing for an increase in the assize of bread, includes the wife’s work among the necessary costs of making a loaf; “Two shillings was allowed by the assize for all maner of charges in baking a quarter of wheate over and above the second price of wheate in the market,” but the writer declares that in Henry VII.’s time “the bakers ... might farre better cheape and with lesse charge of seruantes haue baked a quarter of Wheate, then now they can.” It was then allowed for “everie quarter of wheate baking, for furnace and wood vid. the Miller foure pence, for two journymen and two pages five-pence, for salt, yest, candle & sandbandes two pence, for himselfe, his house, his wife, his dog & his catte seven pence, and the branne to his advantage.”[[464]]
The baker’s wife figures also in account books, as transacting business for her husband. Thus the Carpenters’ Company “Resd of Lewes davys wyffe the baker a fyne for a license for John Pasmore the forren to sette upe a lytyll shed on his backsyde.”[[465]]
Although conforming in general to the regulations for other trades, certain Boroughs retained the rights over baking which had been enjoyed by the Feudal Lord, the Portmote at Salford ordering that “Samell Mort shall surcease from beakinge sale bread by the first of May next upon the forfeit of 5ls except hee beake at the Comon beakehouse in Salford.”[[466]] In other towns the bakers were sufficiently powerful to enforce their own terms on the Borough. In York, for instance, the Corporation of Bakers, which became very rich, succeeded in excluding the country, or “boule bakers,” from the market, undertaking to sell bread at the same rates; but the monopoly once secured they declared it was impossible to produce bread at this price, and the magistrates allowed an advance.[[467]] In some cases bakers were required to take out licences, these being granted only to freemen and freewomen; in others they were formed into Companies, with rules of apprenticeship. “They shall receive no man into their saide company of bakeres, nor woman unles her husband have bene a free burges, and compound with Mr. Maior and the warden of the company.”[[468]] At Reading in 1624, “the bakers, vizt., William Hill, Abram Paise, Alexander Pether, complayne against bakers not freemen, vizt., Izaak Wracke useth the trade his wief did use when he marryed. Michaell Ebson saith he was an apprentice in towne and having noe worke doth a little to gett bread. James Arnold will surceasse ... Wydowe Bradbury alwayes hath used to bake.”[[469]]