Women of England

by Bartlett Burleigh James

Face painting, which came in direct derivation from the tattooing of the ancient Britons, is a practice that at the time of which we are writing was very prevalent in England. It came under as vigorous arraignment by the writers of the fifteenth century as did the ridiculous forms of hair dress. The cosmetics in use were of many sorts, and were usually injurious to the skin of the user.

The dress of the women also fell under censure and satire, although that of the men was even more strongly reprobated by contemporary writers. It does not do to accept too readily the strictures passed upon the dress of any age without considering the source of the criticism. Throughout the Middle Ages, the clergy found dress a convenient topic for their moralizing, and there is no doubt that the strictures were often excessive, although the activity with which the matter was discussed indicates the importance in which it then was held and also makes it an important subject for our investigation as a determining element in the study of the manners and customs of the period as they relate to woman and reveal her to us.

The great variety of fabrics, many of them imported, which were in use enabled women to make a wide choice in the selection of material for their clothing, while it also afforded the women of the lower orders an opportunity for almost as varied a display as was made by those in higher ranks. In the reign of Henry IV., who revived the sumptuary legislation of the kingdom with regard to dress, Thomas Occliff, the poet, in rebuking the extravagances of the times, speaks of those who walked about in gowns of scarlet twelve yards wide, with sleeves reaching to the ground and lined with fur, of value beyond twenty pounds, and who, if they had been required to pay for what they wore, would not have been able to buy enough fur to line a hood; and he adds that the tailors must soon shape their garments in the open field for lack of room to cut them in their houses. He mourns chiefly the extravagance of dress on the part of the wealthy, because "a nobleman cannot adopt a new guise, or fashion, but that a knave will follow his example."

After the middle of the fifteenth century, the ladies ceased to wear the long trains which they had formerly affected, and substituted excessively wide borders of fur or velvet. By the end of the century, the dress of the two sexes was so nearly alike that it was difficult to distinguish between them. The men wore skirts over their lower clothing, their doublets were laced in front like a woman's stays, and their gowns were open in the front to the girdle and again from the girdle to the ground, where they trailed slightly. At first, the ladies imitated the men, who wore greatly padded trunks, by extending their garments from the hips with foxes' tails and "bum rolls," as they were called; but as they could not hope to keep pace with the vast protuberance of the men's trunks, they introduced the farthingales, which enabled them to appear as large as they pleased.

Such were the manners and styles of the period with which the Middle Ages closed and the modern era began. They were not markedly different from those of the later Middle Ages generally, but that was because fundamental changes in society do not find their first expression in matters which are superficial. The great revolution which had been going on in the basic forms of society, through peaceful processes as well as social upheavals and the prowess of arms, had its reflux more in the morals than in the manners of the age. Nevertheless, one cannot pursue the theme of custom and manners throughout the mediæval period without being conscious of a progress or development significant of more than mere caprice. This, in fact, was the case. Any philosophic treatment of English society during the Middle Ages would have to take cognizance of manners and customs as indices of the growth of political, constitutional, and religious principles; and in this growth would appear the consistently developing status of woman.

While it is difficult to fix upon any one fact as comprehending the condition of women in English society at the close of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the new era, there is one which challenges attention. In reaping the harvest of the narrow and bigoted times through which she passed, woman found herself possessed of one sort of fruitage, namely, public rights. The essential equality of the woman and the man, which first appeared in the castle, had become a general fact of English society. Feudalism and its vassalage of the female sex had disappeared, and the women of the industrial classes, whatever their economic condition, became sovereigns of themselves. The women of the towns, largely through the instrumentality of the guilds, had established precedents which marked the path of their progress as "persons" before the law. Associated industry drew them out of their homes, or at least out of the limited sphere of home life, and placed in their hands the loom and the spindle of the world's industry. "The candle" of the goodwife "that went not out by night" no longer burned for the provident industry of household needs, but became a veritable torch to illumine the paths of England's commerce and to add to that glory of civilization which constitutes her commercial greatness.

Out of the whole body of womankind, the Church had chosen to select a class of women who were dedicated to its service and who taught by their acts the responsibility of the prosperous toward their needy brethren; while this does not appear to have been a benefit to women generally, but simply a training in charity for the classes who were consecrated to that object, nevertheless the influence of these chosen women upon their sex, in awakening their keener sensibilities toward poverty and distress, aided in placing upon the brow of woman the queenly crown of compassion which has made her so largely a ministering force in modern society.

The elegance and refinement of the women of the manors, as well as the stability and resourcefulness of the wives of the wealthy burghers, already gave indication of the development of the splendid type of modern English society known as the country gentry and the no less admirable class of the English tradespeople. Indeed, the evolution of the middle class as a conservative force is one of the greatest factors to be considered in mediæval study. "Blue blood," once regarded as a peculiar strain of vital fluid by which, through some mysterious means, the upper stratum of society was marked off from the lower, came to be detected in the veins of those whose only pedigree was poverty and whose only claim upon the consideration and respect of their fellows was real worth of character. An aristocracy which could be repleted from the plebeian ranks of the middle classes of society, upon whose members titles were bestowed, not because of their readiness to respond to the needs of the privy purse of a monarch, but because they had assumed leading and important positions in relation to England's honor and power, was an aristocracy that did not become archaic or degenerate. The equality of opportunity, which is the pride and promise of modern society, had its beginnings in those early days when the gate of emergence from lower class conditions was so seldom opened far anyone to pass out to where the ascent of Parnassus might quicken his ambition.