A special set of rules was given for the lady's behavior while in church, and if she could sing she was to do so when asked and not require too much pressing. Ladies were further recommended to keep their hands clean, to cut their nails often, and not to suffer them to grow beyond the finger or to harbor dirt. When passing the houses of other people, ladies were not to look into them: "for a person often does things privately in his house, which he would not wish to be seen, if anyone should come before his door." For the same reason a lady was not to go into another person's house, or into another's room, without coughing or speaking to give notice to the inmates. The directions for a lady's behavior at the table were also very precise. "In eating, you must avoid much laughing or talking. If you eat with another (i.e., in the same plate, or of the same mess), turn the nicest bits to him and do not go picking out the finest and largest for yourself, which is not courteous. Moreover, no one should eat greedily a choice bit which is too large or too hot, for fear of choking or burning herself.... Each time you drink, wipe your mouth well, that no grease go into the wine, which is very unpleasant for the person who drinks after you. But when you wipe your mouth for drinking, do not wipe your eyes or nose with the tablecloth, and avoid spilling from your mouth or greasing your hands too much." Added to these directions for deportment, particular emphasis was laid on the avoidance of falsehoods, which suggests the prevalence of the vice.
The modern "servant question" was not without its counterpart in the Middle Ages. We find instances of advice tendered upon the subject to the ladies of those times. An early writer on domestic economy divided the servants who might be found in a manorial establishment into three classes: those who were employed on a sudden and only for a certain work, and for these a previous bargain should be made regarding their payment; those who were employed for a certain time in a particular description of work, as tailors, shoemakers, butchers, and others, who always came to work in the house upon materials provided there, or the harvest men for the gathering of the crops; and domestic servants who were hired by the year, these latter being expected to pay an absolute and passive obedience to the lord and lady of the household and any others who were set in authority over them.
Naturally, it was the female servants who came under the supervision of the lady of the house, and minute directions are given for their ordering. She was to require her maids to repair early in the morning to their work; the entrance to the hall and all other places by which people enter, or places in the hall where they tarry to converse, were to be swept and made clean, "and that the footstools and covers of the benches and forms be dusted and shaken, and after this that the other chambers be in like manner cleaned and arranged for the day." After this, the pet animals were to be attended to and fed. At midday the servants were to have their first meal, which was to be bountiful, but "only of one meat and not of several, or of any delicacies; and give them only one kind of drink, nourishing but not heady, whether wine or other; and admonish them to eat heartily, and to drink well and plentifully, for it is right that they should eat all at once, without sitting too long, and at one breath, without reposing on their meal or halting, or leaning with their elbows on the table; and as soon as they begin to talk or to rest on their elbows, make them rise and remove the table." After their "second labor" and on feast days also—when seemingly the workday was not so long as usual—they were to have another lighter repast, and in the late evening, after all their duties were performed, another abundant meal was served. It then devolved upon the lady of the house or her deputy to see that the manor was closed, and to take charge of the keys, preventing anyone from going in or out; and then, having had all the fires carefully "covered," she sent the servants to bed and saw that their candles were extinguished to prevent the risk of fire. The lady was always careful as to whom she received into her house as servitors; female servants who came to her as strangers were not well regarded, and were not given trusts of importance, and their characters, so far as was possible, were looked into, as well as the circumstances of their leaving their former place of employment.
The term "spinster," which is now confined to unmarried women, was a term of consideration applied to all women of the better class during the Middle Ages. It was indicative of her superior rank, and was especially adhered to by gentlewomen who married out of their station, as a sign of their good birth and gentle breeding.
The term "gentle blood," as now understood, means only that some persons have the fortunate circumstance of refined parentage or ancestry; but in the Middle Ages, when the pride of gentle blood was one of the most distinguishing characteristics of the prevailing feudal society, it was seriously believed that through the whole extent of the aristocratic classes there ran one blood, distinguishable from the blood of all other persons. So strongly was this view entertained, that it was commonly thought that if a child of gentle blood should be stolen or abandoned in infancy, and then bred up as a peasant or a burgher, without knowledge of its origin, it would display, as it grew toward manhood, unmistakable proofs of its gentle origin, in spite of education and example. Whatever the fallacy of this belief, its effect upon the ladies of superior birth was to make them prize their station highly; but it also created a spirit of haughtiness toward those who were below their station, and a harshness in their relation to their domestics which was not always conformable to the graciousness and consideration which these very ladies often displayed where there was no question involving their caste.
In considering the dress of the women of the Middle Ages, we remarked upon the censure and sarcasm which were passed upon the vanities into which women were led by their devotion to the changing fashions of the day. Every class of society was pervaded by a love of dress, which expressed itself in the greatest extravagances and absurdities. A knight of the fourteenth century compiled for three young ladies, the daughters of a knight of Normandy, a manuscript which contains advice and directions for the regulation of their conduct through life. It contains several very curious passages relative to dress: "Fair daughters," says their mentor, "I pray you that ye be not the first to take new shapes and guises of array of women of strange countries." He then inveighs against the wearing of superfluous quantities of furs as edging for their gowns, their hoods, and their sleeves. After commenting upon the sinfulness of useless fashions and their effect upon the lower classes, he proceeds to portray the absurdities into which the latter were led by aping their betters, and suggests that the furs which they wore in profusion had better at least be dispensed with in summer, as they served only "for a hiding place for the fleas." The knight whose daughters are thus counselled is unable to deter them from falling into extravagances of attire, and has recourse to the legend of a chevalier whose wife was dead and who made application to a hermit to know if her soul had gone to Paradise or to punishment. The holy man, after long praying, fell asleep, and saw the soul of the fair lady weighed in the balance; with Saint Michael standing on one side and the Devil on the other. The latter addressed Saint Michael and claimed the woman as his own on the score that she had ten diverse gowns, and a less number than that would have sufficed to lose her soul; besides which, with what she had wasted she might have clothed two or three persons who for the lack of her charity died of want. So saying, the fiend gathered up all her gay attire, ornaments, and jewels, and cast them in the balance with her evil deeds, which determined the balance against her, and he bore her away to the lake of fire. The same night, in order to deter his daughters from painting their faces, the knight recounts a horrible legend of a fine lady who was punished in hell because she had "popped and painted her visage to please the sight of the world."
It is not by such incidentals as dress, but by the enduring qualities of character, that the women of the higher circles of the English Middle Ages were able to make an indelible impress upon the life and character of the nation. And more especially may this be said of the women whose lives were largely spent in the sheltered circle of a pure domesticity,—the women of the manors.