They worked as a rule from five in the morning till seven at night in summer and from dawn till dusk in winter, with half an hour for breakfast, and an hour and a half for dinner and a sleep on hot days. There was a holiday for every festival of the Church.
Of Jack of Newbury's workshop we read,
Within one room being large and long
There stood two hundred looms full strong;
Two hundred men, the truth is so,
Wrought in these looms all in a row.
By every one a pretty boy
Sate making quils with mickle joy,
And in another place hard by
An hundred women merrily