Women of England

by Bartlett Burleigh James

The distresses to which women were subjected by the peculiar form of liberty which they enjoyed is illustrated by the following quotation from an enactment in the Statute of Laborers in the reign of Edward III: "Every man and woman of our realm of England, of what condition he be, free or bond, able of body and within the age of threescore years, not living in merchandise, not exercising any craft nor having of his own whereof he may live, nor proper land about whose tillage he may himself occupy, and serving any other, if he be in convenient service (his estate considered), be required to serve, he shall be bounden to serve him which so shall him require.... And if any such man or woman being so required to serve will not the same do,... he shall be committed to the next gaol, there to remain under strait keeping, till he find surety to serve in the form aforesaid."

All of the oppressive enactments regulating the wages of laborers and fixing the maximum of the sum that they were at liberty to accept affected women equally with men. An enactment of Richard II. provided "that no artificer, labourer, servant, nor victualler, man or woman, should travel out of the hundred, rape, or wapentake where he is dwelling, without a letter-patent under the King's seal, stating why he is wandering, and that the term for which he or she had been hired has been completed." Otherwise the offender might be put in a pair of stocks, which was to be provided in every town.

The guild system, despite its attitude toward women, was the beginning of the narrowing of her industrial sphere. Prior to the importation of skilled laborers in textile and other branches of industry, such activities were identified with the homes of the people, not merely in that the industry itself was conducted in them, but that the product was limited to the needs of the household, the demands of charity, and such surplus as was used in trade. The guild broadened the meaning of industry to meet the demands of a rising commercial system whose trade routes became clearly established and extended throughout Europe and into the East. So that, while the industry of the women artificers became limited in that many things which had largely occupied their hands became the settled occupations of men, the products which still depended mainly upon their industrial activity became much more widely dispersed, and made them factors in the developing industries to which England is so deeply indebted for her trade supremacy. With the decline of guilds, there was a return on a very large scale to the system of home industry, when every farmstead and rural cottage became a manufacturing centre. The development of the factory system of the eighteenth century, upon the introduction of improved machinery for manufacture, completely removed industry from the home and created the modern factory town.

It is not our purpose to do more than suggest the influence which the guilds exerted in bringing woman into the larger stream of English life by the definition of her legal status which her industrial consequence and activities made necessary. It has been already remarked that the statutes of the times made her personally responsible before the law as an industrial factor. In this way, woman became increasingly regarded as a social integer rather than as simply a domestic incident. This was a distinct gain in the end, however crude the conception at first. The complex questions of woman's social status are still largely centred about the question of her industrial place. The insistent claim of the sex that they shall be regarded as worthy of a part in the world's work projects into the discussion of the place that she shall occupy many other questions concerning matters which are immediately involved. It is not too much to say that all of the issues which arose during the modern period, and together form the specifications of the platform of "woman's rights," find their beginning in this first responsible relation of woman to the industry of the nation. Society is established upon an economic basis, and so the problem of the duties and responsibilities of woman in a public way must be centred about industry. It will not do to criticise the crudeness of the early legislation regarding woman when she first stepped into the arena of associated industry, and to remain oblivious to the fact that the question of her industrial status is no more satisfactorily determined after the lapse of centuries. It is true that the question during these centuries became greatly involved at times, as, for instance, at the period of the great industrial revolution; but, with all the aspects which the question assumes to-day and the problems which are related to it, the crux of the matter is the same as it was at the time of the rise of the guilds.

The guild ordinances took the view of woman as an industrial unit, without regard to her personal relations. If she became a merchant and associated herself with the guild, she was under the same laws regarding financial responsibility as was any other member. The fact that she was a woman, or that she was married and had children, did not constitute a plea in her behalf for different treatment from that accorded a guild brother. If a woman-merchant became a debtor, she had to answer in court as any other merchant, and "an accyon of dette be mayntend agenst her, to be conceyved aft' the custom of the seid lite, w[^t] out nemyng her husband in the seid accyon."

The legislation of the period generally recognized the equality of the sexes in the matter of labor. An ordinance of Edward IV., made in the borough of Wells, provided that both male and female apprentices to burgesses should themselves become burgesses at the expiration of their term of service. Similar statutes relating to apprentices in London likewise made no distinction between boys and girls. The problems centring about woman's relation to industry not having arisen, the fact of her employment presented no serious difficulties. When the proclamation of 1271, relating to the woollen industry, was issued, it permitted "all workers of woolen cloths, male and female, as well of Flanders as of other lands, to come to England to follow their craft." Indeed, the women were less fettered than the men in their industrial avocations, for, while by the statute of 1363 the men were limited to the pursuit of one craft, women were left free in the matter.

In this connection, it is interesting to refer to the development of the silk industry as a typical occupation of woman. It is impossible to determine the time when "the arts of spinning, throwing, and weaving of silk" were first brought into England. We do know, however, that, when first established, they were pursued by a company of women called "silk women." The fabrics of their skill were in the many forms of laces, ribbons, girdles, and other narrow goods. Toward the middle of the fifteenth century, these women were greatly distressed by the Lombards and other Italians, who imported into the country the same sort of goods, and in such quantities that their sale was hindered and the workers placed in danger of starvation. This led to a reference of their complaint to Parliament, with a statement of the grievances for which they desired redress. This document bore the title: The petition of the silk women and throwesters of the craftes and occupation of silk-work within the city of London, which be, and have been, craftes of women within the same city of time that no man remembereth the contrary. The petition then goes on to set forth "that by this business many reputable families have been well supported; and young women kept from idleness by learning the same business, and put into a way of living with credit, and many have thereby grown to great worship; and never any thing of silk brought into this land, concerning the same craftes and occupations in any wise wrought but in the raw silk alone, unwrought, until now of late that divers Lombards and others, aliens and strangers, with a view of destroying the silk-working in this kingdom, and transferring the manufactories to foreign countries, do daily bring into this land," etc. Then follows a statement of the inferior grades of fabrics thus introduced, which the complaint said was "to the great detriment and utter destruction of the said craftes; which is like to cause great idleness among the young gentlewomen and other apprentices to the same craftes." The petition that the importation of these goods should be prohibited was granted, and we hear no more of these estimable ladies and little of their infant industry. It was then thought no disgrace for a lady of quality to conduct such household manufactories.

The town-dwelling woman looked down upon her rural sister, a fact that is not at all surprising when the difference in the condition of the two classes of women is considered. The town-dwelling woman had the privileges of guild association and the liberties which it gave her, while the woman in the agricultural districts was but a drudge. The former were identified with manufactures and commerce, while the latter were tied to the soil. Even after the rise of copyhold tenure of land, the grievances of the agricultural population were considerable, and of many sorts. While the villains flocked to London to demand legal exemption from the old labor obligations which went along with such servile condition, the cottars claimed freedom from labor rents for their homes, and the copyholders of all kinds demanded that they should not be compelled to grind at the lord's mill the corn which they raised for their household needs. The rising tide of industrial revolution represented a climax of centuries of grievance; and when the revolt did come, it was as a demand for the manumission of property held in villanage. There was at the time hardly any personal servitude demanding such strenuous measures for betterment. The popular agitation seemed to be enlisted against class impositions, and so the following lines:

"When Adam delved and Eve span,