Work Flashcards
Women played a vital role in…
Medieval economy
There was a common idea that women’s work was…
Fundamentally different from men’s, and that jobs were socially determined
Only a fraction of jobs accomplished by women are…
Represented in manuscripts
Images of women at work are grounded in reality but not…
Totally accurate or representative
Women were predominantly responsible for domestic chores such as…
Childcare, cooking, cleaning, flaxwork, woolwork, nursing the sick and elderly
Women did a lot of farm work. Their roles on the farm included…
Planting and tending vegetables, harvesting crops, caring for poultry, milking livestock, churning butter and making cheese, cleaning and shearing sheep
The prominence assigned to female harvesters in art pre-1400 is almost unparalleled, possibly symbolic of…
Fertility and procreation, with sexual allusions as well
Calendars recording major holy days in liturgical and devotional books often depicted…
Images of women doing typical tasks for each month
Women in rural communities had to do a lot of chores alone, including…
Rising at night to comfort children, milking at dawn, feeding the fowl, baking, brewing, carding and spinning wool, and preparing meals
Wealthy women were not compelled to perform such demanding physical jobs and had more…
Varied, less strenuous routines
Christine du Pizan’s “Book of Three Virtues” recommended a woman know…
The yearly income of her estate, discuss finance with her husband, understand property management, watch out for napping workers, and instruct maids
Knowledge of estate management was imperative because…
Husbands were often absent due to to war or business, or they might die
Women could not have careers in…
Law, civic government, academia, or the church
Domestic servitude:
- some were paid a wage and lived away, whilst others got board and lodging with a single payment at the end of employment
- women in this line of work had to forfeit freedom and privacy
Construction work:
- digging ditches and latrines
- hauling bricks, sand, and stones (cathedral of Siena)
- laying roof tiles (Parma Charterhouse)
- paid half the rate of men
Manuscript trade:
-legal documents include female surnames which indicate this line of work, such as La Lumenore, Le Luminers, and Le Bokebindere
Prostitution:
-independently or in brothels, some of which were disguised as bathhouses
Other avenues of employment open to women:
Wet nurses, laundresses, spice merchants, teachers, brewers, weavers, acrobats, thread and silk manufacturing, woodwork, metalwork, leatherwork, tavern and inn management, and market stall trading
The town of Flanders was well known for…
Having a lot of independent female workers in the markets and factories as a chief commercial centre in Western Europe
Textile manufacturing:
- female dominated industry
- made luxury items like gold thread and silk
- female-only guilds in Cologne, Paris, and Rouen
- young female apprentices (8-11) learned the trade for 4-6 years in return for bed and board
Women who worked in family business with their husbands or fathers had more…
Autonomy, stability, and chance of earning a decent wage
Many women who mastered their trades could run…
Businesses independently after their husbands died
Johanna Hill (1400s)…
Londoner who took over her late husband’s bell making foundry in 1440 until her death a year later. Seven of her bells still exist, each bearing a mark of her arms.
