Women of England

by Bartlett Burleigh James

Long after feudalism had ceased, however, it was difficult to disabuse the minds of people of the idea that the blood which flowed in the veins of a gentleman was different from that of a peasant or a burgher. It is curious to note one of the legendary explanations of the division of blood as given by Alexander Barclay, a poet of the reign of Henry VII. According to his story, while Adam was occupied with his agricultural labors, Eve sat at home with her children about her, when she suddenly became aware of the approach of the Creator, and ashamed of the number of her children, she hurriedly concealed those which were less favored in appearance. Some she placed under hay, some under straw and chaff, some in the chimney, and some in a tub of draff; but such as were fair and comely she kept with her. The Lord told her that He had come to see her children, that He might promote them in their different degrees. When she presented them, according to age, one was ordained to be a king, another a duke, and so on through the list of high dignities. The maternal solicitude of Eve made her unwilling that the concealed children should miss all the honors, and she brought them forth from their hiding places. Their rough and unkempt appearance, which was due to the nature of their places of concealment, added to their unprepossessing personalities, disgusted the Lord with them. "None," He said, "can make a vessel of silver out of an earthen pitcher, or goodly silk out of a goat's fleece, or a bright sword out of a cow's tail; neither will I, though I can, make a noble gentleman out of a vile villain. You shall all be ploughmen and tillers of the ground, to keep oxen and hogs, to dig and delve, and hedge and dike, and in this wise shall ye live in endless servitude. Even the townsmen shall laugh you to scorn; yet some of you shall be allowed to dwell in cities, and shall be admitted to such occupations as those of makers of puddings, butchers, cobblers, tinkers, costard-mongers, hostlers, or daubers." This, so the story informs us, was the beginning of servile labor; and such a view of caste was no more displeasing to the peasantry, who knew nothing better, than it was to the baron, whose pride it pampered.

A poem of the latter part of the fifteenth century gives the wishes appropriate to the men and women of the different ranks of French society. Those of the women are most characteristic. Thus, the queen wishes to love God and the king, and to live in peace; the duchess, to have all the enjoyments and pleasures of wealth; the countess, to have a husband who is loyal and brave; the knight's lady, to hunt the stag in the green woods; the lady of gentle blood also loves hunting, and wishes for a husband valiant in war; the chamber maiden takes pleasure in walking in the fair fields by the riversides; while the burgher's wife loves, above all things, a soft bed at night, with a good pillow and clean white sheets. This statement of the characteristic desires of the various classes of French women holds good as well for the English women of that period.

The court of Burgundy, which, during the fifteenth century, was notable for its pomp and magnificence and its ostentatious display of wealth, was regarded as furnishing the models of high courtesy and gentle breeding; and it was the centre of literature and art. Circumstances had brought the court of England into intimate connection with it, so that England was more affected by Burgundy than by any other part of Europe. The social character in England and France, which, to some extent, had followed parallel lines since the Norman conquest, now began to diverge widely. The breakdown of feudalism in England, where it had never been so fully developed as in France, was not contemporaneous with French conditions in this respect. Consequently, in the latter country, the chasm between the lower and the upper strata of society grew ever wider, the lower classes becoming more and more miserable, and the upper more immoral. In England, as we have seen, serfdom disappeared, or existed in name only, and the relation between the country gentry and the peasants became increasingly intimate and kindly. The growth of commerce had spread wealth among the middle classes and had added much to their social comfort. Although social manners were still very coarse, the influence of religious reformers, such as the Lollards, was being felt in an improvement in the moral tone of the middle and lower classes of society. Moreover, the discussion of great social questions had become general among the people. Even in the middle of the fourteenth century, the celebrated poem of Piers Plowman took up such discussions, and one of the tenets of the Lollards was the natural equality of man. In England, conditions were ripe for the advent of a new era, and in the fulness of time there came forth the spirit of new learning, of new industry, of exploration, of investigation, and of religious freedom, to lead the English people into the inheritance for which they had been prepared by those centuries over a part of which hung such a pall as to secure for them the title of the Dark Ages.

Chapter X

The Women of the Tudor Period

As the year has its seasons, marked by alternations of active growth and recuperation for new development, so likewise has history. If the Middle Ages were a time of comparative dearth as viewed in the light of the modern era, certainly there was ample vitality hidden in the quiet forms and the mechanical fixity of the period. The season of vernal glory for England, which opened with the reign of Henry VIII. and found its climax in that of Elizabeth, was glorious because the beauty and brilliancy which characterized it were due to the splendid utilities which were passed on to it from the Middle Ages. Art, literature, and the pleasant pastimes of leisure—the affluence of prosperity—are the efflorescence of a people's history, though the absence of these graces and privileges of life may not mean a dearth in any profound sense, for it may be that their absence but indicates a lack of favoring conditions for the root stock to put forth foliage and flower. The simple form of social life which obtained during the Middle Ages, as contrasted with the brilliancy of intellect and the breadth of view of the modern era, does not denote any important difference in the character of the great mass of the English people, any more than it can be said of the fallow land not under cultivation that it has less productivity than the fields which by the waving grain give evidence of their fertile worth.

The easy acceptance in modern times of the benefits of inventions which greatly broaden the scope of living and add immeasurably to its comfort shows how readily people adjust themselves to advances in the conditions of life. So that which we look upon as an era was not so considered by the people who witnessed the stimulus which we regard as the beginning of all modern intellectual and social life. For this reason, we need not expect to discover in the women of the early modern period any radical difference from their sisters of preceding generations; but we shall find that, with the change of environment and the coming of a better state of life in general, womankind was gradually and insensibly affected in ways of permanent improvement. The opening up of new avenues of human interest and the enlargement of old ones increased the sphere of woman's life and influence; yet had it not been for the status she had achieved already, she would no more have entered prominently into the blessings and privileges of the new era than did the women of Greece generally benefit by the Golden Age of Pericles.