The Working Woman

Women in the countryside not only did household work, but they also worked along side their husbands in the fields. At times, women even carried their distaff or spindle to spin wool while tending to a child or keeping their husbands company. Women who lived in towns had plenty of work as well. These women were not farmers like their counterparts in the countryside, but they had plenty of work to do within the town to keep them very occupied.

Many became ale brewers, baxters (women bakers), apothecaries, even blacksmiths. Peasant women in the Middle Ages always seemed to have chores to complete.

Brewing was an arduous and rather dangerous activity, since it involved carrying twelve-gallon vast of hot liquid and heating large tubs of water. Five percent of the women in the coroners' inquests lost their lives in brewing accidents, usually by falling into vats of boiling liquid or spilling the hot wort on themselves (149 Hanawalt).

Gilds were an interesting way to protect the trade of a skilled group. The closest thing comparable today would be a Union. The author quotes Judith M. Bennett's article, Crafts, Gilds and Women in the Middle Ages, when she explains how guilds operated:

Gilds joined together persons engaged in the same trade or craft for their mutual economic, social, and religious benefit. As a rule, only persons involved in skilled work, merchants or artisans, formed gilds, and they controlled access to their work through these organizations. Only members of a gild could engage in the trade of craft supervised by that guild.

Only the masters of the gild could maintain workshops, hire apprentices (workers in training) and other workers, and participate in gild politics and decisions. Subject to the control of the masters were wage workers called journeymen or journeywomen, whose wages, working hours, social obligations, and gild privileges were set by the masters and their elected officers.

At the bottom of the gild hierarchy were apprentices, adolescents indentured to a master of the gild for a period of about seven years. Masters provided room, board, and training to their apprentices, and when the term of service ended; they sponsored their apprentice�s formal admission to the guild as journeymen or journeywomen� (30 Dean).

Some occupations like hucksters were far from having a guild, however, it was a trade that provided a way of living for many women. These women would sell mostly food. Unlike brewing, this occupation required almost no costly equipment so it was accessible to many peasant women in town. Only required minimum pots to make dishes.

There are very little working women's names in medieval books. One of the names found was that of Julia del Grene of York who earned wages for carding (cleaning) wool but was also employed in the craft of making saddles with her husband (34 Dean). Julia not only participated in a very common activity for women at the time (carding wool), but also worked as a saddle maker, a craft unusual for a woman in her times.

There were also Fabric tradeswoman that involved mercers (dealers in fabrics), drapers (sellers of cloth), silk weavers, wool weavers.

Apothecaries were the pharmacists of medieval times. Many apothecaries were women who mixed and sold medicines. It can be said that Healers were also apothecaries, since many of their remedies consisted of making her own remedies including syrups, potions, laxatives, digestives, and aromatics. But healers had to be careful, for women who healed were often believed to be witches.


Other unusual occupations for that period were woman blacksmiths, miners, armourers, shipwrights and tailors.

Food tradeswoman covered a large area in which women worked. There were baxters (women bakers), fish sellers which was a profitable business, since there were many fast days on which the church forbad people to eat meat, poultry sellers, fruit sellers, cheese makers, and spinach sellers. Many children's surname was their mother's occupation, for example Baxter was the last name for a woman baker and Brewster was for women ale brewers.