Women of England

by Bartlett Burleigh James

Let us now take a glance at the table service of a noble dame of the period, where the extreme of etiquette may be expected to prevail. The hunting horn having announced that the meal awaits the guests, squires or pages bear to them scented water for the customary ablutions. This is served in delicately wrought ewers, placed in silver basins. A further touch of delicacy to the repast is often provided by perfumed herbs scattered over the rich damask tablecloth. The guests are not inconvenienced by the crowding of decorative vessels on the board. The numerous courses are well served, for a superior domestic is charged with this duty, and he is assisted by two varlets. At the sideboard is a squire or page whose sole duty is to serve the wines and drinking vessels; he too is assisted by a varlet, who places them before the several guests. None of these attendants are required to leave the hall, to which the officers of the kitchen and the cellar bring the dishes and the wines. During the meal the gallery is occupied by the musicians, who, it is to be presumed, will serve to enliven the formalities attendant on the scene. The parlor was a more pretentious room than the hall, and was ornamented with more care. While it was a usual feature of town houses of the period, it had been introduced so comparatively late that its final position in the plan of the house had not become fixed; sometimes it was upon the ground floor, and sometimes upon the floor above, while the larger houses had several such apartments. It had open recesses with fixed seats on each side of the window, and the fireplace was smaller and more comforting than those of the hall. When carpets came into use, the parlor was the first room to be treated to the luxury, and it had the additional distinction of being the only room that contained a cupboard. An inventory of the furniture of the parlor of a fifteenth-century house includes the following: a hanging of worsted, red and green; a cupboard of ash boards; a table and a pair of trestles; a branch of latten, with four lights; a pair of andirons; a pair of tongs; a form to sit upon, and a chair. It will be seen from this list that the furnishings for a parlor were not numerous, but they are suggestive of a degree of comfort greatly in advance of that of prior centuries. This paucity of household furniture did not arise so much from the inability to procure it as from the insecurity of the times. Margaret Paston, in a letter to her husband, written in the reign of Edward IV., says: "Also, if ye be at home this Christmas, it were well done ye should do purvey a garnish or twain or pewter vessel, two basins and two ewers, and twelve candlesticks, for ye have too few of any of these to serve this place; I am afraid to purvey much stuff in this place, till we be sure thereof."

DINING IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY
From a miniature of the period.
________
The hunting horn having announced that the meal awaits the
guests, squires or pages bear to them scented water for the
customary ablutions. This is served in delicately wrought ewers
placed in silver basins. . . . The guests are not inconvenienced
by the crowding of decorative vessels on the board. The numerous
courses are vell served, for a superior domestic is charged with
this duty, and he is assisted by two varlets. At the sideboard is a
squire or page whose sole duty is to serve the wines and drinking
vessels; he too is assisted by a varlet who places them before the
several guests. . . . During the meal the gallery is occupied
by musicians.

Wall paintings had come into use in the houses of the better sort, and the hardwood finishings of the parlor and other important rooms displayed elaborate carvings and a massiveness and dignity of scheme. Among the newer styles of chairs was one of the folding sort, which exactly resembled our camp stools. Griffins, centaurs, and the like were patterns for candle and torch holders, which were often of wrought iron of an elaborate design. The branch of latten with four lights, mentioned in the inventory quoted, referred to a sort of chandelier, holding four candles, which was suspended from the centre of the ceiling and was raised and lowered by means of a cord and pulley.

As the people began to lose taste for the hall, on account of its publicity, they gradually withdrew from it to the parlors for many of the purposes to which the hall had been originally devoted. The recess seat at the windows was the favorite place for the female members of the household when employed in needlework and other sedentary occupations, and the apartment was commonly used for the family meals. In a little treatise dating at the close of the fifteenth century, one of the speakers is made to say: "So down we came again into the parlor, and there found divers gentlemen, all strangers to me; and what should I say more, but to dinner we went." The table, we are told, "was fair spread with diaper cloths, the cupboard garnished with goodly plate." Also, the parlors relieved the bedchambers of many of the uses to which they had been put, and secured to them greater privacy. Largely because of the lack of any other place, ladies had been accustomed to receive their friends in their bedchambers, but now the parlor was used for a reception room, and there was spent much of the time which the female part of the family had previously passed in the bower or the chamber.

Young ladies of even the great families were brought up very strictly by their mothers, who kept them constantly at work and exacted from them an almost slavish respect. It appears from the correspondence of the Paston family, to which reference has been made, that the wife of Sir William Paston, the judge, was a very harsh mother. Jane Claire, a kinswoman, sent to John Paston, the lady's eldest son, an account of the severe treatment of his sister Elizabeth at Mrs. Paston's hands. The young lady was of marriageable age, and a man by the name of Scroope had been suggested as her husband. Jane Claire writes: "Meseemeth he were good for my cousin, your sister, without that ye might get her a better; and if ye can get a better, I would advise you to labour it in as short time as ye may goodly, for she was never in so great a sorrow as she is now-a-days, for she may not speak with no man, whosoever come, nor even may see nor speak with my man, nor with servants of her mother's, but that she beareth her on hand otherwise than she meaneth; and she hath since Easter the most part been beaten once in a week, or twice, and sometimes twice in a day, and her head broken in two or three places. Wherefore, cousin, she hath sent to me by friar Newton in great council, and prayeth me that I would send to you a letter of her heaviness, and pray you to be her good brother, as her trust is in you." Elizabeth Paston's matrimonial desires were not realized at this time, as she was transferred from the household of her parents to that of the Lady Pole; this was in accordance with the custom which we have already noticed of sending away young ladies to great houses, where they received their education and served to fill up the measure of pride of the great lady to whose train they were attached. The larger the number of such maidens a lady could boast of, the greater was her importance; nor did she hesitate to accept payment for the board of those of whom she thus took charge, and from whom she derived further profit by employing them at lace making or other suitable work.

Young ladies were taught to be very demure and formal in their behavior in company, where they sat bolt upright, with their hands crossed, or in other constrained attitudes. In a poem, written about 1430, entitled How the Good Wife Taughte Hir Dougtir, we have the rules which were enforced upon girls for their conduct in society, and particularly the advice which was tendered the girl with regard to her marriage and her subsequent conduct. The love of God and attendance upon church were enjoined, and in the performance of the latter duty she was not to be deterred by bad weather. She was to give liberally to alms, and while in attendance upon divine service was to pray and not to chatter. Courtesy was recommended in all of the relations of life; and when the time came that she was sought in marriage, she was told not to look upon her suitor with scorn, whoever he might be, nor to keep the matter a secret from her friends. She was not to sit close to him, because "synne mygte be wrought," and a slander be thereby raised, which, she is informed, is difficult to still. She was counselled, when married, to love her husband and answer him meekly; she was to be well mannered, not to be rude, nor to laugh boisterously—or, to give it as it is expressed in the poem, "but lauge thou softe and myslde." Her outdoor conduct also was regulated for her. She was not to walk fast, nor to toss her head, nor to wriggle her shoulders; she was not to use many words, nor to swear, for all such manners come to evil. She was to drink only in moderation, "For if thou be ofte drunke, it falle thee to schame." She was to exercise due discretion in all of her relations with the other sex, and to accept from them no presents. She was herself to work and to see that those under her were kept employed; to have faults set right at once, keep her own keys, and to be careful whom she trusted. If her children gave her trouble and were not submissive, she must not curse or scold them, but "take a smert rodde, and bete them on a rowe til thei crie mercy." Besides all these enjoinments, she was impressed with the duty of benevolence, and was to act as physician to all those about her.

The position of woman at this time was clearly defined. Certainly the woman of the middle classes had taken her proper place in society. She did not disdain to look after the affairs of her establishment, nor was this regarded as in any way derogatory to her dignity; and this was also true of women in the highest rank. It is said that, as a rule, the husband and wife were in full accord, and confided in one another upon terms of equality. The wife was careful of her charge at home, and heedful of her husband's purse; she generally made her own as well as her children's clothing, if the material were to be had. No wife of to-day could show greater solicitude for the comfort and well-being of her husband than did Dame Paston, the wife of John Paston, who in 1449 wrote to her husband a letter from which we may extract the following: "And I pray you also, that ye be wel dyetyd of mete and drynke, for that is the grettest helpe that ye may have now to your helthe ward."

The wife was the companion of her husband when he was at home, and in his absence entertained his guests with all the graces of hospitality. The duties of the day did not leave her a great deal of time for leisure, for, besides directing the conduct of the establishment and looking after her maidens, teaching them the arts of housewifery, spinning, weaving, carding wool and hackled flax, embroidery, and garment making, there were the pet birds and squirrels in cages to be looked after and fed. But life was not all labor, nor were the maidens of the household surfeited with instruction. In their periods of relaxation, they danced, played chess and draughts, and read the latest thing in romances with as keen interest as the modern society girl evinces in the most recent novel. To be informed in all such matters was essential to the standards of culture of the day.