Transcriber’s note: Cover created by Transcriber and placed in the Public Domain.

WOMEN IN ENGLISH LIFE.

C. Cook, sculp.

ANN,

Lady Fanshawe.

London Richard Bentley & Son 1896

WOMEN
IN ENGLISH LIFE

from Mediæval to Modern Times.

BY
GEORGIANA HILL,
AUTHOR OF “A HISTORY OF ENGLISH DRESS.”

IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.

LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, New Burlington Street,
Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty.
MDCCCXCVI.

INTRODUCTION.

The object aimed at in the following pages is to show the place that women have held in our national life, from the days when what we call the Saxon race was dominant in England, down to the present time. For this purpose those phases of our social history have been dwelt upon which display most clearly the changes that have taken place in the position of women, and the influence of great forces like the Church and Feudalism. Names have been used as illustrations, and not with any intention of adding to biographical literature. Instances that are the most striking individually do not always serve best as examples. For this reason many familiar historical scenes and figures have been omitted. The continuity of a general record would be broken by divergence into episodes interesting on account of their exceptional character. Prominence has been given to domestic life, as that concerns the larger number, and to those aspects of the case which have not been summed up in the numerous accounts of noteworthy women.

In literature and art, which have their own special histories, where the part that women have played is recounted at length, only a few general points have been noted in order to show how women have stood in relation to letters and art in successive periods. The subjects themselves are treated as stages marking social advance, not discussed in the light of their intrinsic interest and attractiveness.

A consideration of the position of women in England leads, naturally, to the subject of their position in Europe generally, for the main influences which have affected women in this country are the same as those that have operated on the Continent, although the result has taken different forms in accordance with the idiosyncracies of each nation. It is unnecessary to discuss the condition of women in the Eastern parts, for while Western Europe has been changing and progressing with ever-increasing rapidity during the last ten centuries, Eastern Europe—as far as social life is concerned—remained for a long period in an almost stationary state. In character it was Asiatic, though during the last three hundred years it has succumbed more to the influences of its geographical position.

In the Middle Ages the conditions of life in Western Europe were pretty uniform. There was hardly any education in the sense of book-learning, except among religious communities. Locomotion was difficult and dangerous, so that there was but scanty intercourse between the inhabitants of different parts of the same country. Fighting was the chief business of men, and manual work, skilled and unskilled, occupied women of all ranks.

In an age when war was so frequent, the civil duties of life were left to women, who fulfilled obligations that in more peaceful times fell to the lot of men. They not only had entire charge of the household, but shared largely in the operations of the field and the farm; they were the spinners, the weavers, the brewsters, and the bakers. They frequently controlled the management of estates, and occasionally held public offices of trust and importance. There were no laws to prevent women from filling such positions, and the fittest came to the front unhampered by conventionality or arbitrary restrictions. But although women appear to have had a wider field of activity than they afterwards enjoyed, when social life became more complex, there was a counteracting influence which told against the development and free exercise of their energies. This was the influence of the Church.

It was the policy of the Church to keep women in a subordinate position. As long as they remained thoroughly convinced of their natural inferiority, and of the duty of subservience, they could be reckoned upon as valuable aids to the building up of the ecclesiastical power. The immense force of the religious and devotional spirit in woman was at the absolute disposal of her spiritual directors. At a time when there was no science, no art, and, for the majority, no literature, the power of the Church was incomparably greater than anything we can conceive of now.

The Church did not find it difficult to persuade women to accept the limits marked out for them. There was no public sentiment to set off against the power of the priest. Society was ruled by physical force; the law was weak, and the Church was women’s shelter from the rudeness of an age when those who should have protected the defenceless were themselves the greatest offenders.

In order to enforce the doctrine of inferiority, the Church went further, and proclaimed that there was in woman a wickedness additional to the sin common to humanity. The “eternal feminine” was held before men’s eyes as a temptation to be warred against. To fly from the presence of woman was to resist evil. Celibacy was a saintly virtue, and family life a thing to be tolerated rather than approved. In the words of St. Chrysostom, woman was “a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable calamity, a domestic peril, a deadly fascination, and a painted ill.” The influence of the Fathers was not confined to their own age; their writings continued to affect the whole teaching of the Church, Anglican as well as Roman, which has always been in favour of the subordination of woman. She has been assigned a lower place in religious exercises, and has been excluded from the priestly office.

In successive periods of history the Church was largely responsible for the terrible persecutions inflicted upon women—and chiefly upon the poorest and most helpless—on the ground of witchcraft. Once having disseminated the theory of woman’s inherent vice, it was only a natural corollary to impute to her both the desire and the power of working extraordinary mischief. The doctrine suited ages which believed not only in an embodied and omnipresent Power of Evil, but also in countless and multiform expressions of that power through natural objects and phenomena.

The Feudal System, which prevailed in England up to the middle of the fifteenth century, and in France up to a much later period, had a repressive effect on women of the lower classes, though for women in the upper ranks it presented certain advantages. The women of the families of tenants on a feudal estate were regarded as chattels which went with the land. They were bound to the soil, and were fined if they either accepted work or married outside the lord’s domain.

The age of chivalry had a twofold effect on the position of women. It created an ideal of womanhood which stirred the imagination and the poetic fancy. Chivalry had its sublime side. It was a protest against tyranny and vice; it inspired men to heroic deeds; it gave them a loftier conception of duty. It was the revulsion of noble minds from the coarseness, the unpitying indifference to wrong, and contempt for weakness, which characterized the Middle Ages. Like a new gospel, chivalry dawned upon a world in which the virtues of Paganism had declined, while its vices still triumphed.

But chivalry had another side. The pure reverence for woman passed into romantic admiration, into a worship of physical beauty, into mere passion. Woman, from being little less than a saint, became a toy. The teaching of the Church and the spirit of chivalry both acted adversely on the position of woman. By the one she was lowered below the level of humanity, by the other she was raised to an ideal pinnacle, where it was impossible she could remain. The fault was the same in both cases. The priest and the knight removed woman from her natural place into a false position, endowing her with sub-human wickedness and superhuman excellencies.

With the Renaissance and the spread of education, social life underwent great changes. The Church was no longer the dominant influence. Great secular forces came into play; the tide of learning swept over Europe; commerce, travel, discoveries, inventions, caused old habits to be unlearnt. Thought, which had been stagnant, was freshened into a moving stream. In the intellectual re-birth, in the conflict of faiths, in the deadly political struggles which occupied the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in England, we see how women were passing from the narrow life of the home into the wide life of the nation.

The great industrial revolution, which began in the last century, and has progressed with such rapid strides, has had its special bearing on the position of women. The material improvements brought about by machinery and developing trade, have lifted the middle-class woman out of the purely domestic sphere by lessening her household duties, and so leaving her free for other occupations. She has ceased to be a producer. But the working woman has been simply drawn more and more from family life, to be absorbed into the ranks of outside workers. She is, in many cases, as much detached from the home as the man, by the necessity of wage-earning.

The educational revolution of modern times has also worked great changes in the position of women in England. It has specially affected the middle classes, who have been thereby enabled to enter with perfect freedom into the world of letters, to follow professional and business careers—in a word, to carve out for themselves an independent course. A new conception has arisen of what is woman’s place in society. She now bears an active part in all the great movements—political, religious, philanthropic; her co-operation is sought in public work, and her presence welcomed, rather than resented, in all new social enterprises.

In the lighter side of life—in its recreations, which are now more in the nature of work than play—women have a much wider field than formerly, and take their pleasure as best suits them, without let or hindrance. They are free to act according to their necessities and tastes, wherever common sense and fitness lead them, without finding the barrier of sex laid across the path. Those who are afraid lest the world should suffer by women adopting modes of life unsanctioned by tradition, may console themselves by remembering that Nature is stronger than fashion or opinion, and will at once make her voice heard whenever the lightest of her laws is transgressed.

The position of women in England cannot be regarded as an orderly evolution. It does not show unvarying progress from age to age. In one direction there has been improvement, in another deterioration. There have been breaks and gaps in the general advance, so that certain periods appear at a disadvantage in comparison with their predecessors. The last half-century shows very rapid and momentous changes. Never were such advantages placed within the reach of women; never were so many opportunities—social, literary, educational, commercial—open to them. But these advantages and opportunities would have been useless if women had not been ready, and shown their fitness for the new trusts. They have themselves largely created the public sentiment which now so strongly impels them towards wider action, and imposes on them greater responsibilities.

CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

PERIOD I.
WOMEN IN THE DAYS OF FEUDALISM.

WOMEN IN ENGLISH LIFE.

CHAPTER I.
A MEDIÆVAL MANOR-HOUSE.

Domestic life in the Middle Ages—Interior of a manor-house—Position and duties of the mistress—Household arrangements—Dame Paston and her daughters—Lady Joan Berkeley—The lady of the castle in time of war—Lady Pelham’s defence of Pevensey Castle—Her letter to her husband.

To those living in the hurry and bustle of modern existence, there are few pictures so attractive as that of a stately manor-house in olden times. Its seclusion and calm, the solidity, regularity, and simplicity of its daily life, are a soothing contrast to the noise and complexity of the common round in the present day. We are accustomed to think of the Middle Ages as a period of strife, of rude commotions, with a generally unsettled state of society. It was so, but with it all there was a great peace which this generation knoweth not. Fighting and brawling there was in plenty. Life was cheap, property insecure; every man was his own policeman; quarrels meant blows, and might was right. But the very causes which produced this state of society created also an opposite condition of things. Bad roads, lack of communication, which made it possible for deeds of violence to pass unpunished, kept the knowledge of those deeds hidden from the community at large. Life went on in quiet corners undisturbed by the thought of evil and misfortune close at hand. There was no responsive throb of feeling between one town and another, no electric thrill passing from country-side to country-side. Each place lived its life comparatively apart. To-day a touch on any of our great centres of life is felt throughout the kingdom. In mediæval times England was not a whole, but a conglomeration of communities, each with an independent existence.

The manor-house was essentially a self-contained domain. Even the best of country roads were so indifferent that a town a few miles off was not much more than a name to most of the occupants of the manor-house. What were called high-roads were merely tracks along which waggons were dragged with the utmost difficulty. The house itself, embowered in trees on low-lying ground or sheltering against the breast of a hill, was in its isolation both defenceless and secure. Generally, it had a palisade or outer fence to form a protection against assault. That a house of any pretensions should be something in the nature of a stronghold was necessary in those days.

The upper story was reserved for the lady and her maidens. It was the part most protected, and was sometimes strengthened further by the placing of heavy doors at short intervals on the staircase which led to this portion of the house. Originally consisting of only one apartment called the solar, this upper floor was gradually enlarged until it comprised several sleeping-rooms, the hall becoming more and more a place for dining and receiving guests and transacting business, while the real family life was lived upstairs. Mediæval manners necessitated some retreat where the women-folk would not be exposed to contact with any passing stranger who might claim hospitality. It seems, however, to have been customary for the lady of the house to sit with her lord, or, in his absence, to preside at the dinner or supper taken in the hall. Her place was at the upper end, away from the entrance, and only privileged guests would be permitted to sit close to her. There was a full acknowledgment of the wife’s social position. To women of rank and station the feudal system brought certain advantages. Every feudal lord was a kind of princeling, and his wife shared his dignities. The state kept up in the feudal castle and in the mediæval manor-house gave the wife considerable importance. As far as social duties went, husband and wife acted as partners, receiving and entertaining the guests together. The unsettled times, which so often kept the lord from his own roof, brought the lady into prominence as sole guardian of the family possessions and interests. She was hedged round with a little circle of ceremony. A great lady always had a body-guard of maidens who lived under the eye of their mistress, while the lord had a similar contingent of pages or squires. It was a general custom in feudal times, and even somewhat later, for the daughters and sons of good families to be sent to live in the household of some knight or gentleman to be instructed in all the arts pertaining to their station. Feudal etiquette required that a great lady should be personally served by ladies of rank. With this personal service was combined training in all domestic accomplishments which it was necessary for a well-bred maiden to acquire. The English fashion of sending children from home was commented on by foreigners as a proof of the lack of parental affection. It was a fashion that was in full vogue in the middle of the fifteenth century. In 1469, Dame Margaret Paston writes to her son, Sir John Paston, about his sister Margery—

“I wuld ye shuld purvey for yur suster to be with my Lady of Oxford, or with my Lady of Bedford, or in sume other wurchepfull place, wher as ye thynk best, and I wull help to her fyndyng, for we be eyther of us werye of other.”

Dame Paston’s blunt letter seems to bear out the charge brought against English parents.

A knight’s lady was like the mistress of a boarding-school, and a very stern mistress she often proved to be. Rank and birth did not exempt her pupils from strict discipline and hard work. While their brothers were learning to ride and to wrestle, to shoot, and to handle the battle-axe, to sing and to learn to bear themselves gallantly like gentlemen, the maidens were being initiated into the mysteries of weaving, spinning, brewing, distilling, salting, and many other processes which were then performed by each family for itself. To these occupations was added needlework of all kinds, from the making of plain serviceable smocks and cloaks to embroidering banners and altar-cloths; for all wearing apparel, as well as everything required for household use, was manufactured and made up at home. If the male members of the establishment were numerous, a busy time the lady and her maidens must have had. Well might the poet write—

“Mult doit fame estre chier tenue
Par li est tout gent vestue.
Bien sai que fame file et œuvre
Les dras dont l’en se vest et cuevre

“Et toissus d’or et drap de soie
Et por ce dis-je où que je soie,
A toz cels qui orront cest conte,
Que de fame ne dient honte.”[1]

No doubt the coarser kinds of work, such as the clothes for dependants, were given out to the servants; but every young gentlewoman had to learn the process, so as to be able in her turn to superintend a household. Tailors were also employed for the making of both women’s and men’s garments. In royal households there were regular tailors who made feminine as well as masculine garments. A tailor was called a cissor. In the time of Edward I., the King, the Queen, and the Prince of Wales each had their separate tailors.

There were large establishments of celibate priests, like that of Bishop Swinfield who lived in the thirteenth century, where no female servants were permitted to enter, and men performed all the domestic work. Unless the nuns of some neighbouring convent were employed in working for these semi-monastic households, there must have been a supply of masculine weavers and spinners. Curiously enough, the only in-door employment in these priests’ houses for which female labour was engaged was that of brewing. The brewing was always exclusively in the hands of women, and it is thought possible that even in ecclesiastical establishments the old custom was followed.

In the Middle Ages it was not usual for women to be employed about the royal palaces except to attend on the queen and princesses. In France, says Meiners, in his “History of the Female Sex”—

“When the kings lived apart from their consorts, they had in their palaces no persons of the female sex, except a few of those menials whose services are indispensably necessary in every family, such as washerwomen, needle-women, etc., and even these were removed by Philip the Fair from his court. In like manner the palaces and apartments of the queens and princesses were inaccessible to all persons of the other sex, except the maître de l’hotel and the knights or esquires who mounted guard before the doors and chambers of the princesses. At table, in rising and going to bed, in undressing and dressing, queens and princesses were attended only by their women and maids; and this ancient practice was retained by the queens of France so late as the sixteenth century.”

But to return to the manor-house. A great lady, who had to superintend and take an active share in the making only of the clothes for the household, would in these days feel herself very hardly pressed, especially if she were also expected to be her own housekeeper and see to the good ordering of the kitchen. But if she had also to manufacture material and to preside over all those initial processes of which she now sees nothing but the results, life would seem an intolerable burden. It was not so thought in mediæval times. It is true that in noblemen’s houses there was a steward, whose business it was to provide the household with necessaries. In the Berkeley family, which may be taken as a typical case, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the steward was accustomed to order, either monthly or quarterly, certain quantities of provisions to be supplied from the manors and farms belonging to the estate. But the lady of the house exercised a general superintendence. Joan, the wife of Thomas, third Lord Berkeley, who lived in the reign of Edward III., is described as—

“a vertuous lady and great huswife and a wise overseer of such household affayres as were proper to her sex and government.... When shee came to theis farm-houses (as often shee did) to oversee or take accompt of her dairy affaires, shee oftentimes spent in provisions at a meale there the valewe of 4d. and 4d. ob. [4¼d. about] whereof allowance was afterwards given to the Accomptant before her husband’s Auditor at the end of the year. And some tymes also a cheese of two pound weight was at such a tyme spent by her attendants. And in such huswifely courses this virtuous Lady spent a part of her aged and weake yeares untill her death.”

There was a dignity attached to manual labour which is exemplified in the use of the word “spinster.” It was a term of which women were proud. We now confine it to unmarried women, but as late as the sixteenth century it was used by married women of the better class. A gentlewoman who married a man of inferior rank claimed the title of spinster as a sign of her good birth and gentle breeding.

Life was, however, by no means all work for the ladies of the manor-house. There was time and to spare for lighter employments and diversions. We hear a great deal of games, especially of chess, in the households of people of rank, and the number of so-called chamber games shows that the ladies had many hours for recreation. There was dancing too, and lute-playing, and a little conning over ballads and romances. For although the damoiseaux frequently could not sign their names, and found it hard work to spell out the words of the breviary, the demoiselles, if they were not very skilful with the quill, were fairly proficient in the art of reading, which was more cultivated by women than by men.

In the intervals between needlework and housewifery, there would be strolling in the garden on fine days, weaving garlands of flowers—a favourite mediæval pastime; and in summer weather, when the lanes were passable, rambles outside the domain and occasional rides. It is easy to understand how much more essential was the garden to the enjoyment of the women-folk in days when out-door exercise was comparatively difficult. There would be a little visiting among the dependents in the hamlet, and for the lady herself, in cold wet seasons, a great dispensing of herbal medicines for rheums and ague. At all times there were the doles to the poor, gifts which were thought due from the great house. Religious observances occupied a portion of each day, though the length and number of these depended on the character of the inmates. Still, there would be certain outward forms of devotion to be gone through in almost all large households. Few great ladies were so punctilious in their devotions as the Princess Cecil, mother of Edward IV., who used to rise at seven o’clock and say matins with her chaplain. After that she heard a low mass in her chamber. A little later in the morning, when the slight breakfast had been partaken of, she would go to the chapel to hear divine service and two low masses. She said evensong with her chaplain, and then went again to chapel.

In ordinary households the saints’ days would be observed, the great fasts kept, and mass heard at regular intervals. Sometimes the abbot of the neighbouring monastery would pay what might be called a pastoral visit to the lord and lady of the manor, accompanied by some of his monks, mounted on mules, accustomed to pace the rough or miry roads. Besides these clerical visitors, there would be strangers to be entertained every now and then, and if they were of high degree, the lady herself would see that their wants were supplied, and would sup and converse with them.

Life in the mediæval manor-house, though it was a life much secluded from the noise and bustle of the world, was one full of activity and varied occupation. There were so many necessary duties that must be performed, that the absence of entertainment and of the pleasures of art and literature was not felt. The horizon was limited. Interests were concentrated within a narrow compass, but what is unknown is not missed. For the women the manor-house was the world. It is recorded as a merit on the part of Lady Joan Berkeley (mentioned above), that in the forty-two years of her married life she never travelled ten miles from her husband’s houses in Somerset and Gloucester, “much less humered herselfe with the vaine delightes of London and other cities.” If a great lady like the wife of Thomas Lord Berkeley lived so circumscribed an existence, it is easy to imagine how small was the circle of women of less degree. But this limited area of thought and activity does not seem to have been a bad nursery. Writing of the fifteenth century, Sir James Ramsay says—

“If we are led to form an unfavourable opinion of the male aristocracy of the period, far otherwise is it with regard to the ladies. Whether as wives, sisters, or daughters, their letters create most favourable impressions.”

In feudal times it was not all noble ladies who could live in peace and seclusion in their homes, protected from strife and rude alarms. The châtelaine was often called upon to take supreme command in her lord’s absence, and if trouble arose and the castle were attacked, the mistress was not only the nominal but the actual head of affairs. We do not find in those days that women shut themselves up and declined to interfere because they did not understand politics. On the contrary, they responded to the need with alacrity. The great lady put down her embroidery-needle and took up the sword when danger threatened. She did not fasten herself up in the solarium with her maidens, but took the command of the household.

A notable heroine in the Wars of the Roses was Lady Joan Pelham, wife of Sir John Pelham, Constable of Pevensey Castle. In 1399 Sir John was in Yorkshire with Henry Duke of Lancaster, fighting against Richard II. Lady Joan, left in Pevensey Castle, was fiercely attacked by the Yorkist forces from Sussex, Kent, and Surrey. The castle was in great danger, and there was much difficulty also in obtaining provisions. The long letter which she wrote to her husband during the siege has the additional interest of being the earliest letter extant written by an English lady.

“My dere Lord,

“I recommande me to yowr hie Lordesehippe wyth hert and body and all my pore myght, and wyth all this I think zou, as my dere Lorde, derest and best yloved off all earthlyche Lordes; I say for me and thanke yhow my dere Lorde, with all thys that I say before, off your comfortable lettre, that ze send me fron Pownefraite that com to me on Mary Magdaleyn day; ffor by my trowth I was never so gladd as when I herd by your lettre that ye warr stronge ynogh wyth the grace off God for to kepe yow fro the malyce of your ennemys. And dere Lorde iff it lyk to your hyee Lordeshippe that als ye myght, that smyght her off your gracious spede whych God Allmyghty contynue and encresse. And my dere Lorde, if is lyk zow for to know off my ffare, I am here by layd in a manner off a sege, wyth the counte of Sussex, Sudray, and a greet parsyll off Kentte; so that I ne may nogth out, nor none vitayles gette me, bot with myche hard. Wharfore my dere if it lyk zow, by the awyse off zowr wyse counsell, for to sett remadye off the salvation off yhower castell & wt. stand the malyce off ther sehures foresayde. And also that ye be fullyehe enformede off there grett malyce wyker’s in these schyres whyche yt haffes so dispytffuly wrogth to zow, and to zowl castell, to zhowr men, and to zuor tenaunts ffore this cuntree, have yai wastede for a grett whyle. Farewell my dere Lorde, the Holy Trinyte zow kepe fro zour ennemys and son send me gud tythyngs off yhow. Ywryten at Pevensay in the castell, on Saynt Jacobe day last past.

“By yhowr awnn pore, J. Pelham.

“To my trew Lorde.”

CHAPTER II.
LEARNING BEFORE THE DAYS OF THE PRINTING PRESS.

Learned ladies in Saxon times—Education of women in the Middle Ages—The rise of Grammar Schools—Want of provision for girls—Convent schools—Improvement of education in the fifteenth century—Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond, and her patronage of learning.

It might seem superfluous to discuss the subject of education in periods when reading and writing were the accomplishments of but a fraction of the population, while to speak of learning seems altogether an anomaly. As has already been noted, writing was a rare accomplishment up to the tenth century. At the time of the Norman invasion, there were probably few laymen who could spell out a breviary. Yet even under the Saxon kings, when there was such a dearth of knowledge among the people and a scarcity of all literature, there was a thread of scholarship running through the nation among the Monastic Orders. Although the foundations of learning had been laid, the building went on slowly. Strange as it appears, there was not only among men, but among women, a zest for study in the far-off days of the Saxon monk Aldhelm, who wrote for his female pupils his work, “De Laude Virginitatis.”

Times that were in most respects very unfavourable for the pursuit of letters produced students and scholars of no mean capacity. The seclusion in which monks dwelt by choice and women by necessity, gave opportunity for studies that would have been neglected under less rude conditions. Saxon ladies varied the monotony of their domestic occupations by the study of Latin, which they not only read, but wrote with tolerable fluency.

Latin was then the great vehicle of knowledge. It was the language of law, the medium of correspondence between scholars. Most of the accessible literature was in Latin. It was, therefore, to the study of that language above all else that students betook themselves. The learned ladies of the sixteenth century had their forerunners in the women of the seventh and eighth, in the studious Abbess Eadburga and her pupil Leobgitha, with both of whom the celebrated St. Boniface, called the Apostle of Germany, corresponded in Latin.

At that period learning was so closely associated with religion, that the Church was the nursery of scholars. The acquirements of the Saxon ladies were due to their connection with the religious orders. It was in the priories and convents that the arts of reading and copying manuscripts, of writing and composition were cultivated. So exclusively was learning the monopoly of the Church, that in the Middle Ages the study of books was but an inconsiderable part of a gentleman’s education.

With women the case was somewhat different. Their enforced seclusion in days of rude manners led them to sedentary occupations. They were frequently the only members of the family who could read with any ease. As long as war was the chief business and out-door sports the chief pastime of men, the quieter lives of the women gave them the advantage in point of learning.

But with the Renaissance a change crept in. The education of men began to improve, while that of the women was left as before. When William of Wykeham founded his school at Winchester in 1373, he thought only of boys. Henry VI. did not propose to admit girls to his foundation at Eton. All the great schools which rose up in the sixteenth century, Rugby, Harrow, Westminster, St. Paul’s, and the rest, were confined to the male sex. The universities, though owing much to the beneficence of women in early times, have, until recently, not only done nothing for the advancement of women’s education, but thrown stumbling-blocks in its way.

In education, as in everything else, the rich, of course, had the advantage. Sir Nicholas Bacon, in the reign of Elizabeth, introduced some reforms into the education of wards. There were—

“articles devised for the bringing up in vertue and learning of the Queenes Majesties Wardes, being heires males and whose landes descending in possession and coming to the Queenes Majestie shall amount to the cleere yearly value of c. markes or above.”

Girls were put into wardship, too, but the Lord Keeper does not seem to have thought any reforms were needed in their education.

It is not surprising to find that the girls of the poorer classes were often much neglected. A contemporary writer, speaking of the women of England, says—

“This nevertheless I utterlie mislike in the poorer sort of them, for the wealthier doo sildome offend herein: that being of themselves without competent wit they are so carelesse in the education of their children (wherein their husbands also are to be blamed) by means whereof verie manie of them neither fearing God, neither regarding either manners or obedience, do oftentimes come to confusion which (if anie correction or discipline had beene used toward them in youth) might have proved good members of their common-wealth and countrie by their good service and industrie.”

The children of the poor could not have profited much by the free education of the convent schools, for they began to earn their living as soon as they were able to use their hands. There was plenty of “discipline” in their bringing up, but not much regard paid to “manners” or learning.

The custom among the well-to-do classes of sending their children to live in the houses of the nobility prevailed all through the Middle Ages and up to the sixteenth century. Among the laity it was a recognized mode of education. The kind of training which the girls, under this system, received depended on the character and acquirements of the lady of the house. The primary things to be learnt were good manners and domestic arts. Books were very scarce, and, except in religious houses, there would be few persons who could make use of them. Even at the end of the fifteenth century it was unusual for a gentleman to be able to read and write.[2] There were, of course, the schools attached to monasteries and convents where all classes were taught, and in good families tutors were employed for both girls and boys, such men as Elmer, Bishop of London, Roger Ascham, Walter de Biblesworth, and others notable for learning, acting in that capacity in the households of the nobility. The curriculum at the convents included English, Latin, music, and grammar. The majority of noblemen’s and gentlemen’s daughters are said to have attended the convent schools. A custom prevailed for these young gentlewomen to wear white veils, to distinguish them from professed nuns, who wore black, which implies that all the pupils were resident in the convents. It was not uncommon for the religious houses to be used as boarding establishments. At some places ladies were received as inmates of a conventual household, bringing their own servants to attend upon them, and to a great extent living apart from the nuns.

With regard to women’s education, there seem to have been periods of enlightenment alternating with periods of darkness. In Saxon days, in the seventh and eighth centuries especially, the study of letters occupied a good deal of the attention of women. But while the Norman and Saxon were struggling into unity, education everywhere seems to have been at a low ebb.

Women did not profit much by the literary renaissance of the age of Chaucer. It is said that the daughters of John of Gaunt, who was father to Henry IV., were the first English ladies who could write (the Saxon abbesses and their pupils are ignored in this statement), while the earliest letter extant written by a woman in English is said to have been the notable epistle, already quoted, sent by Lady Joan Pelham in 1399 to her husband, relating her troubles during her gallant defence of Pevensey Castle.[3]

By the middle of the fifteenth century, however, some improvement is noticeable. If writing were such a rare accomplishment as to add lustre to the family of John of Gaunt, the grand-daughter of that illustrious begetter of kings was celebrated for the keen interest she took in books, and was herself an author. Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII., was a noted woman of learning, though her interest for later generations lies more in the part she played in history. She was a woman of great intellectual ability, and had been most carefully trained. Printing was then a new art, and the Countess of Richmond, to give her the title by which she is best known, was a warm patroness of Caxton’s partner, Wynkyn de Worde, whom she appointed as her special printer. The countess was a very great lady, and had her printer, her poet, her band of minstrels, just as she had her resident confessor and her domestic retinue. She ordered several works to be printed, and did much to foster a taste for literature among the ladies of the court.

Her bent of mind was distinctly religious, and in her later years she regulated her establishment on monastic lines, and lived a life of conventual strictness. In her secluded manor-house, situated in the Hundred of Woking, her principal visitor was the abbot of the neighbouring monastery of Newark, who from time to time ambled along the ill-kept road with a train of monks all mounted on mules to confer with this powerful but dutiful daughter of the Church. In the picturesquely shaded house, which is still well preserved and retains much of its old-world air, the countess could pursue her reading and meditations undisturbed, and it was probably here that she composed her religious books. Her early studies enabled her to enjoy such literature as was accessible. She was well acquainted with Latin and French, but there is no mention of Greek or Hebrew.

We must skip the two next generations, and go on to the great grand-daughters of the Countess of Richmond before we find the dead languages assuming an important place in the curriculum of a woman’s education. There were very few books accessible to the laity in the days of Margaret of Richmond, but she lived long enough to see the means of knowledge multiplying fast, and to assist in the process.

The intellectual gifts and literary attainments of her grandson, Henry VIII., augured well for the progress of learning in England, and the countess, who died the year that Henry was crowned, was thus spared the pain of witnessing the crimes which stained his after career. The mental energy which characterised all the Tudors seems to have had its fountain-head in their distinguished ancestress, whose position exposed her to many trials and dangers, through which her strength of mind, steadiness of purpose, and nobility of character carried her unscathed. Some ills might have been averted from England had Margaret Beaufort been alive during the reign of her grandson. And what a brilliant leader she would have made of that group of learned ladies who adorned the second half of the sixteenth century!

CHAPTER III.
THE RISE OF THE MIDDLE CLASSES.

The Feudal System unfavourable to the development of the middle classes—Subjection of women under Feudalism—Tyranny of feudal lords—Power of the Church—Rise of commerce—Material progress—End of the Feudal System.

Until the development of England as a manufacturing country, the strength and importance of the middle classes were not felt. They came into power contemporaneously with the growth of trade and commerce. It was the thriving burgesses who made England feared by other nations, for it was they who equipped her fleets and replenished empty exchequers. It has often been remarked that in no other country in Europe is there a middle class corresponding to the middle class in England. In no other country is the middle class such a powerful factor in national life. Whether it will retain its power is doubtful. The blows aimed by socialism at the upper classes are felt by those below. For every large landowner who is attacked on the score of undue wealth, there are a hundred small property-holders who will bend under the strain put upon their resources. Ground rents are not all in the hands of the nobility, and employers of labour are not all battening on enormous profits. It is the middle classes whom the socialistic portion of the democracy wish to reduce to a condition of insecurity, and whose energies they are trying to paralyze.

The feudal system was unfavourable to the growth of the middle classes. It savoured too much of absolutism. Energy was cramped. Individual effort was possible only within certain limits. In the feudal ages people cared more for protection than for freedom. They bowed to the sovereignty of the feudal lord, and were dependent on his bounty. The services which they were obliged to render prevented them from straying into new paths, and the conditions under which they lived made independent action impossible. It was not until the feudal system was broken down that there was a free course for the development of the middle classes. In the first four centuries after the coming of the Normans, it is the aristocracy who are the history-makers. Roughly speaking, there are only two classes to be considered: the nobles and the serfs—for such the lower classes remained in all the important relations of life—and until the arts of civilization have made some progress, until the resources of the country have been brought into play and foreign commerce has grown into importance, the life of the populace is a somewhat monotonous tale.

It has been stated that feudalism raised woman to a higher place in domestic life; that, whereas before she was in a state of subjection, under the feudal system she exercised independent power. Undoubtedly, as a wife woman was a gainer. The mantle of authority with which her husband was invested, fell upon her whenever he was temporarily absent. The ménage of a feudal household certainly gave the lady of the house a dignity, and imposed upon her responsibilities which secured her respect and gave her freedom of action. She was called upon to direct a little army of subordinates, and was her husband’s partner and equal. But this improvement in the status of women is not discernible, except in the governing classes. The women without title, rank, position, wealth, the women of every-day life, profited little. They shared in the subjection of their fathers, brothers, and husbands, and they enjoyed none of the privileges which the feudal system conferred on their more highly placed sisters. In a state of society where the mass of the people were in a dependent position, it was not likely that any special freedom would be granted to or even claimed by women. And in an age when the worship of force was dominant, their physical inferiority told heavily against them. Under feudalism there was no sort of independence possible to women who were born to wealth or rank.

Women were under a twofold sovereignty—that of the feudal lord and of their male relatives. No woman in any position of life could be said to be a free agent. If she were a great heiress, she was disposed of in marriage as best suited the king and his council without regard to her wishes. In the case of a vassal’s daughter, the consent of the feudal lord must be obtained to her marriage. Every tenant paid a sum of money to the lord on the marriage of his daughter, and this tax was even levied in the case of grand-daughters. The price was fixed by the manorial courts. A couple could not be betrothed without the permission of their feudal lord, and if they failed to obtain his consent they were subject to a fine.

In France, when feudalism was at its height, the birth of a daughter was regarded as a calamity, from the sovereign downwards. Louis XI., who refused even to admit into his presence his daughter, Jeanne de Valois, during the first four years of her life, and ferociously struck at her with his sword when she chanced one day to come into view, represents in an exaggerated form the sentiment of the peasant, who, if he had no sons, would say, “Je n’ai pas d’enfants, je n’ai que des filles.”

Feudal England did not express herself so strongly, but a dowerless daughter was felt to be a heavy burden, and a daughter with a portion was treated simply as a marketable commodity.

On the labouring classes the tyranny of the feudal system pressed grievously. A licence had to be bought to go outside the bounds of the lord of the manor to obtain work. For instance, an orphan girl, in the reign of Edward III., paid sixpence for the privilege of serving and marrying “wheresoever and whensoever she pleases.”[4] A woman living on the estate of a feudal lord was regarded as, in a manner, his property. If she married a stranger and left the manor, the lord was entitled to compensation, as being deprived of part of his “live stock.”

All through the Middle Ages it was the aim of the government to keep the people on the land, to prevent the agricultural population from quitting the rural districts. No father who could not show an income of £20 a year in land or rent might apprentice his son or daughter to any trade. This effectually cut off the chances of the majority of the working class from migrating to the towns. The system, unworkable as it appears, did not die out until the sixteenth century.

Powerful as was the Church in the Middle Ages, it was not able to protect women outside the shade of the cloister. And it will be readily understood how great was the influence of the priest in an age when the mass of the people were so little able to think and judge for themselves; in an age when belief in the supernatural encompassed daily life with terrors, when the common laws of nature were dim mysteries, when disease and misfortune were ascribed to the malevolence of witches and evil spirits. The Church was the supreme arbiter, and to question her decrees was to incur the risk of eternal misery. The powers of evil could only be exorcised by holy water and priestly aid, and lapses into sin were atoned for by substantial offerings. It was easy to persuade women, always more susceptible than men to the emotional and imaginative side of religion, that their dreams and fancies were divine warnings. In that quaint collection of fourteenth-century maxims known as the “Book of the Knight of Latour Landry,” the story is related of a young wife who was induced to desert her husband for a lover, and fell sick. She had a vision of a fiery pit, which a priest interpreted to signify the abode of lost spirits, into which she would have been plunged but for her piety in supporting one hundred priests to say masses for the souls of her parents, and in dispensing charity among the poor.

But if the Church tyrannized over the people and took advantage of their ignorance, it was a great uplifting and civilizing power in their lives. But for the Church the Middle Ages would been one dark night of un-illumined barbarism. The Church summed up in herself all that existed of knowledge and culture. It was the symbol of order, progress, and learning. In time of war it was a haven of peace. It was the Church that enabled women to live secure, sheltered lives in the midst of turmoils and danger. It was the guardian of the people’s consciences, and possessed over them a power of life and death.

Looked at from a lighter side, the Church was a potent factor in every-day life. Her festivals were one of the chief recreations of the people. To women especially, whose diversions were fewer than those of men, the feast-days, with their processions and ceremonials, were welcome excitements. In the services of the Church women found an outlet for the gratification of the æsthetic sense which nothing else afforded. If the main features of social life in the Middle Ages be remembered—the sordidness of the dwellings, the absence of everything beyond the barest necessaries in the majority of homes, the lack of indoor recreations, and of all the resources of modern times afforded by the means of locomotion—it will not appear strange that the Church as a social force should have wielded such power.

The rise of the middle classes was the rise of a power antagonistic to the Church. It was the beginning of the revolt against constituted authority. It foreshadowed the strife between reason and dogma. All the movements that have arisen against the power of the Church have come from the middle classes. The spirit of inquiry which led men to question the claims of an infallible priesthood, and culminated in the breakdown of the power of the Roman Catholic Church in England, had its birth among the middle classes. The modern scientific movement, to which the Anglican Church has been so bitterly opposed, started from the same source. The battle for freedom of worship, whether fought by Anglicans against Romanists, or by Dissenters against Anglicans, has been mainly carried on by members of the middle classes.

After the fall of feudalism, in the period immediately preceding the Reformation, the extension of commerce was raising the middle classes into power. New paths were opening out, and as riches were more diffused and intercourse between different parts of the country and with other nations became easier, the influence of the Church was weakened. It became less dominant as new interests arose.

It was in this period that a remarkable step was taken among women of the middle class—a step which shows that their interest in public affairs was very keen. A number of city dames drew up a petition to Parliament and presented it in person. It was not the stimulus of private interest or the sharp spur of national calamity that sent them to the doors of the legislature. It is a significant fact that it was an affront offered to a woman which stirred the citizens’ wives to action in the year 1429, when that unfortunate kinglet, the puppet of his party, Henry VI., was nominally reigning. The Duke of Gloucester’s matrimonial concerns were creating a good deal of agitation. He had put away his wife, the Countess Jacqueline of Hainault, daughter of William IV., Count of Holland, and widow of the Dauphin John, and set in her place Eleanor Cobham. The good citizenesses were full of righteous wrath. They resolved to present a remonstrance to the House of Lords.

“One Mistress Stokes, with divers other stout women of London, of good account and well apparelled, came openly to the Upper House of Parliament and delivered letters to the Duke of Gloucester, to the Archbishop, and other lords there present, containing matters of rebuke and sharp reprehension to the said Duke of Gloucester because he would not deliver his wife Jacqueline out of her grievous imprisonment, being then detained prisoner by the Duke of Burgundy, and suffering her to remain unkindly whilst he kept another adulteress contrary to the law of God and the honourable estate of matrimony.”

These city dames, who probably were not very facile with their pen, who had no newspapers to read, no clubs or societies at which to discuss public matters, who were, doubtless, much occupied with the affairs of their household, were so moved by the iniquity being perpetrated upon one of their own sex, that they could not forbear taking action. There must have been much indignant gossip between good Mistress Stokes and her neighbours. The outrage on the wifely dignity of Countess Jacqueline appealed to their inmost feelings. They were all women of the thriving, comfortable middle class, as the description implies, “stout women,” and “well apparelled,” whose husbands would be citizens of good standing. Or perhaps some of them were women trading on their own account, wool-staplers and merchants, as was not uncommon in those times. They felt, as all good citizenesses should, that they had part and lot in the affairs of the kingdom, and did not think it “going out of their sphere” to express their opinion on a matter of the gravest import. But it was a bold thing to interfere in the affairs of a peer of the realm, one of royal blood, and to go up in person to the House of Lords, especially for petitioners who by their rank and connections could not command special attention, who had neither husbands, brothers, nor friends in the august assembly to which they appealed. The personal element, which was so manifest in the political women of the eighteenth century, was absent.

With the growth of the commercial movement and the increase of material prosperity, society was gradually reconstituted. As feudalism declined, so did chivalry. The artificial view of life which it engendered faded away. The commercial instinct, so strong in the English people, began to override other impulses.

As England emerged from its commercial insignificance, an improvement naturally took place in the material conditions of domestic life. Luxuries that had hitherto belonged exclusively to the aristocracy, were introduced into the homes of the middle classes. Houses were better furnished, dress became more sumptuous, the table was better provided. Indeed, the quality of the food was in advance of the other conditions of life. With the growth of towns was created a more marked difference between the rural and urban population. The burgher’s wife who had glass windows to her house and went to church in a silken hood, felt herself on a different plane from the farmer’s wife with her shuttered lattices and linen coif. The trading class naturally lived an in-door life, and became sensitive to hardships endured without question by the agricultural class. Women who dwelt in cities fell into a different groove of occupations and amusements from their rural sisters, whom they began to regard with some disdain. Field and farm work were looked upon with a little scorn by women who had been brought up in the more sheltered atmosphere of town life. The dance on the village green and the harvest revels were superseded for town dwellers by feasts and shows.

There were hardly any books in the houses even of prosperous traders, whose literature was confined to their account-books. As for the women, they were busy enough with their household affairs, and sought their recreation in a gossip with their neighbours. Few of them ever wrote a letter or found any use for a pen. Even to this day there are good housewives in country districts who would be puzzled to make out a receipt or cast up a column of figures.

In the fourteenth century there were few persons outside the ranks of the clergy who could write. There was a considerable improvement in the following century, which affords a convenient starting-point from which to commence the study of town life.[5] Letter-writing was becoming usual among the well-to-do of the middle classes, those who would now be called the gentry. Education was spreading. The gulf between the aristocracy and the democracy was being bridged over by a thriving, intelligent middle class. As we approach the sixteenth century, the old manner of life is fast seen to be disappearing. The castle is no longer the power that it was once. The sovereignty of the nobles is weakened, in many cases completely shattered, and the system of tyrannical protection on the one side and slavish dependence on the other passes away.

CHAPTER IV.
WOMEN AND THE ANCIENT GILDS.

The industrial equality of former days—Women as members of Gilds—Restrictions on trade—Fitness of girls for industrial occupations—Women as watchmakers: Sir John Bennett’s opinion—The brewsters and ale-wives—Trade unions compared with the ancient Gilds—Influence of the Gilds—Equality of the sisteren and bretheren—Married women trading alone—Labour regulations applicable to men and women alike.

The records of the industrial history of England reveal one anomaly which is by no means cheering to those who are striving to improve the economic position of women. It cannot be gainsaid that in periods before the labour question began to be scientifically discussed, there was a juster conception of the relations which should subsist between the sexes in the common affairs of daily life. Men and women were treated on a par. When labour laws were enacted they were enacted for both alike; it was assumed that the sexes stood on an equality. With one or two exceptions, there was no especial legislation for women. Nor was there any hindrance, either in theory or in actuality, to women trading and engaging in industrial occupations. A woman was not debarred from any commercial pursuit simply by reason of sex. Whatever work she was able to undertake she carried through without having to surmount artificial barriers set up by prejudice and by the action of those interested in the restriction of women’s industrial liberty.

At the present day women have to fight their way into the commercial world, and every fresh step which they make towards independence is hailed as a triumph, and a hopeful sign for the future; or as a retrograde step, a deplorable and dangerous departure, according to the views of the onlookers; but in all cases as something abnormal, to be commented upon and criticized. The general opinion in the first half of this century was that women and business were things apart, and better kept separate. Either it was assumed that women knew nothing about business and could never learn, or that if they did edge their way in they would be thrusting men out.

It does not appear that in the past such views were entertained, that women were considered to be going out of their “sphere” when they entered the world of trade, or that it was attempted to deny them any of the privileges which might attach to commercial pursuits. The women took their places quite naturally side by side with the men, and no one saw anything strange in the position. They could receive apprentices; they became members of trade gilds, worked at various industries; in short, played their part as full members of the industrial community. It has been remarked that “great changes in the status of woman and in the status of labour have been correlative and often contemporaneous.” This is exemplified in the revolution brought about by the factory system, which altered the whole conditions of domestic life for large numbers of women in the lower ranks. The greater freedom which women enjoyed in olden times in regard to trading is remarkable on account of the severe restrictions applied to all forms of industry. It was not as if the worker were left to tread his own path. The relations between employer and employed were strictly defined. Hours, wages, clothing, form of engagement, manner of work, all came under legal supervision. And yet this interfering legislation did not create those differences between male and female adult workers, which have been a deplorable feature of modern times, and which faddists of a certain school are doing their best to accentuate.

It may be argued that women have perfect liberty in the present day to enter upon any commercial pursuit; that the law does not hinder them from becoming merchants, shipowners, and traders of all kinds. What the law, however, does not forbid, custom prevents. Among the middle classes it is tacitly agreed that the boys of the family must be started on a commercial career, and systematic efforts are being made towards achieving that end. A boy is apprenticed to some trade, and shown how to work his way up step by step from the bottom rung to the top of the ladder. He can enter a manufactory, a workshop, a retail business. But want of training and want of capital have militated against the industrial progress of women. There are only a few trades open to a girl, not for lack of physical strength, but because custom has decreed that certain occupations shall belong to men. Putting aside such pursuits as are obviously unsuited to girls—for in dealing with female labour it is the fitness of girls that has to be considered, since all occupations must be entered upon before adult life—there are many employments in which they are as well, if not better, fitted to engage than men and boys.

Sir John Bennett, writing in 1857, called attention to the fact that women were excellent watchmakers, and might be profitably employed in England as they were on the Continent.

“Thousands of women are at this moment finding profitable employment at the most delicate portion of watch-work throughout the district around Neuchatel. The subdivision of labour is there wisely made so minute as to adjust itself precisely to the special capabilities of every woman’s individual dexterity. The watch is composed of many distinct parts; some require force and decision in the hands of the workman, while many are so exquisitely delicate that for them the fine touch of the female finger is found to be far superior to the more clumsy handling of the man.... Now, why should not our English women be employed upon a labour for which their sisters in Switzerland prove themselves so eminently adapted, and thus provide, to a large extent, a remedy for the distresses of our labouring population, and open out a new channel whereby they may elevate their condition and benefit mankind? In London 50,000 females are working under sixpence per day, and above 100,000 under one shilling per day. So long as nearly every remunerative employment is engrossed by men only, so long must the wretchedness and slavery of women remain what it is. For any man to declare, whatever his motive, that the women of London are sure to do badly what the Swiss women are now doing well, is an insult and a fallacy in which I refuse to join.

“No factory system is necessary for the successful manufacture of this very beautiful little machine. The father has but to teach his own daughters, wife, and female relatives at his own home, and then, just as their leisure suits, they can perform each her part without necessarily interfering with the most indispensable of her domestic duties. Thus the whole family is well provided for, and by the reduction of the cost of the watch, the sale would be increased indefinitely, and this increase would give additional employment to men and women in about equal proportion. Working watchmakers have no need to fear the introduction of female labour; the large demand that necessarily would ensue, when watches were materially cheapened in price, would doubtless more than compensate any loss they might temporarily sustain; the change it would effect would be found not only a moral good and an immense social blessing, but would satisfy the indispensable requirements of a strong commercial necessity.”

When people complain of women pushing into men’s occupations, it ought to be remembered how many things men have absorbed which formerly belonged as much, if not more, to women. For instance, it was the women who did the brewing, even in households where men were employed for other domestic duties. The feminine suffix in the word “brewster” is another sign that brewing was a woman’s occupation. Most of the beer-houses in London were owned by women who brewed their own beer up to the end of the fifteenth century, by which time brewing was passing into the hands of men. Women were also the principal ale-keepers, and the ale-wife was a noted character in rural England. The number of inns kept at the present day by women, in the country districts especially, shows how this old custom has held its ground.

An ordinance of Edward III. indicates the kind of trades in which formerly women were predominant. It runs—

“But the intent of the King and his Council is that women, that is to say, brewers, bakers, carders and spinners, and workers as well of wool as of linen cloth and of silk; brawdesters, and breakers of wool, and all other that do use and work all handy works, may freely use and work as they have done before this time without any impeachment or being restrained by this ordinance.”

In former times it was not felt to be unseemly for men and women to work side by side, nor are there any evidences that such a proceeding led to immoral conduct. Then it was habitual for the sexes to be associated in labour. The situation presented nothing strange, and nothing tempting; custom proved a safeguard. In spite of the improvement in manners and public conduct, the difficulty of men and women consorting for a common purpose has always been put forth in modern times as a reason why certain occupations should be restricted to men, except among the lower class of operatives who are continually under the eye of overseers, and in shops where the public act as supervisors.

There are certain departments of industry which bring out very clearly the advantages which women formerly possessed and the privileges they enjoyed. It is claimed, though on insufficient grounds, that the present trade unions are the legitimate descendants of the ancient gilds. In one respect, certainly, they are extremely unlike. The trade unions have, until quite recently, been purely men’s associations, and their formation has been a hindrance to the women working in the same trade. The gilds knew no distinctions of sex. They were formed in the interest of the trading community for purposes of mutual help, and were as much for the benefit of the “sisteren” as the “bretheren.” The attitude of the ancient gilds towards women was essentially different from that of the modern trade unions.

In the Middle Ages the influence of the gilds was considerable. Their authority was widespread, and they practically controlled the trade. It is, therefore, of importance to note their action and the rules by which they were constituted when considering the position of women in regard to industry and commerce. In nearly all the gilds there were women members, and in many cases the names of women appear as founders. Gilds were formed for various purposes. They were in the nature of friendly societies. In addition to their commercial side, they were “associations for mutual help and social and religious intercourse amongst the people,” and these associations “were almost always formed equally of men and women.”[6]

Miss Toulmin Smith says, in her Introduction to “English Gilds,” that—

“scarcely five out of the five hundred were not formed equally of men and women.... Even where the affairs were managed by a company of priests, women were admitted as lay members, and they had many of the same duties and claims upon the gilds as the men.”

The brothers and sisters all met together to transact the business of the gild. It was no mere matter of form to admit women. They were active working members, sharing in all the privileges and contributing to the funds, though smaller payments were sometimes exacted of the women. The female members, like the male, wore the livery.

“Also it is ordeyned that every suster of the fraternite and Gilde schul ben cladde in a swte of hodes, that is for to seye reed, pena 20^d.”[7]

Not only did the gild lend money to the younger members to start them in business, and succour those in distress who “fell into poverty through mishap, and not by fault of their own,” but it provided the dowerless with marriage portions, or the penniless with means to embrace a religious life. In the ordinances of the Ludlow Gild, established in 1824, was a clause that—

“if any good girl of the gild of marriageable age cannot have the means found by her father either to go into a religious house or to marry, whichever she wishes to do; friendly and right help shall be given her, out of our means and our common chest, enabling her to do whichever of the two she wishes.”

In the religious gilds, of which there were two classes, one for the clergy and one for the laity, the women were put on a par with the lay members. Any gross offence, such as drinking and rioting, committed by a priest, was punished with degradation; but if the offender were a layman or a woman, by exclusion until satisfaction was given. The clergy gilds did not admit women as members, but in one of the foreign gilds the wives of lay brothers were admitted on certain conditions at the oft-repeated request of the members.

The great companies also admitted women. The female members of the Drapers’ Company carried on business and received apprentices like the male members. “Every brother or sister of the fellowship taking an apprentice shall present him to the wardens, and shall pay 1¾,” runs the ordinance of 1503. This company was very careful to enjoin respect for its female members. It was expressly ordered that when a “sister” died she should be interred with full honours, have the best pall thrown over her coffin, and be “followed by the Fraternity to the grave with every respectful ceremony equally as the men.” After the death of a gild brother, his widow could carry on his trade as one of the gild. If a female member married a man of the same trade who was not free of the gild, he acquired freedom by the marriage. A woman who married a man of another trade was excluded from the gild. There were certain gilds of which women became free in their own right, and others where the wives and daughters of the gild brothers acquired a right to membership from their connection. In the craft gilds a member was allowed to have his wife and children and maid-servant to assist him in his work. The Clothworkers, the Fishmongers, the Grocers, all speak in their articles of brothers and sisters. Wives of members of the Grocers’ Company were admitted on their marriage.

“All women not of the Fraternity and after married to any of the Fraternity shall be entered and looked upon as of the Fraternity for ever, and shall be assisted and made as one of us; and after the death of the husband, the widow shall come to the dinner and pay 40^d. if she is able.”

If she married out of the fraternity, she was not to be admitted to the feast, or to receive any assistance from the company. Within recent times women have obtained the freedom of both the Fishmongers’ and the Drapers’ Companies, but for the purpose of sharing in the charities, not with a view to trading. Since the beginning of the present century forty-two women have been admitted to the Drapers’ Company, and there are now upwards of a hundred belonging to the Fishmongers’ Company.[8]

Formerly married women were merchants and traders on their own account. Clearly, it was by no means unusual, for in the Liber Albus of London, compiled in the fourteenth century, is an ordinance relating to married women carrying on business alone—

“and where a woman coverte de baron follows craft within the said city by herself apart, with which the husband in no way intermeddles, such woman shall be bound as a single woman as to all that concerns her said craft. And if the husband and wife are impleaded in such case, the wife shall plead as a single woman in the Court of Record, and shall have her law and other advantages by way of plea just as a single woman. And if she is condemned she shall be committed to prison until she shall have made satisfaction; and neither the husband nor his goods shall in such case be charged or interfered with.”

It was recognized that wives were independent beings responsible for their own acts. This is clearly shown by the following ordinance in the Liber Albus:—

“Item, if a wife, though a single woman, rents any house or shop within the said city, she shall be bound to pay the rent of the said house or shop, and shall be impleaded and sued as a single woman, by way of debt if necessary, notwithstanding that she was coverte de baron at the time of such letting, supposing that the lessor did not know thereof.”

There was no exemption for women on the ground of sex. An enactment in the Statute of Labourers passed in the reign of Edward III. for preventing idleness expressly includes women. It provides that—

“every man and woman of our realm of England of what condition he be, free or bond, able in body and within the age of threescore years, not living in merchandize, not exercising any craft, nor having of his own whereof he may live, nor proper land about whose tillage he may himself occupy, and not serving any other, if he in convenient service (his estate considered) be required to serve, he shall be bounden to serve him which so shall him require.... And if any such man or woman being so required to serve will not the same do, ... he shall be committed to the next gaol, there to remain under strait keeping, till he find surety to serve in the form aforesaid.”

When an oppressive enactment was made regulating the wages of labourers and prohibiting them from receiving anything beyond a certain sum, women were included. Their movements also were controlled. In the reign of Richard II. it was provided—

“that no artificer, labourer, servant nor victualler, man nor woman, should travel out of the hundred, rape, or wapen-take where he is dwelling without a letter patent under the King’s seal, stating why he is wandering, and that the term for which he or she had been hired has been completed. Otherwise the offender might be put in a pair of stocks, which was to be provided in every town.”

Another curiously arbitrary regulation ordained that if a girl or boy served up to the age of twelve at husbandry, they were to continue that employment all their lives, and not to turn to any craft. “Up to the age of twelve” is a significant sign of the conditions of juvenile life. Children were held as full members of the working population.

It is evident that in the eye of the law women ranked on an equality with men. Narrow as was the view taken by legislators of industrial life, and absurd as many of the enactments seem now, it was reserved for modern times to set up an artificial barrier between the sexes, to push the working woman down a step, and rank her with children and “young persons.”

The sense of the community was in advance of the legal conception which merged the personality of the wife in that of the husband. The gilds took care, by special ordinances, to remedy the defects of the law. Having admitted women to the full privileges of their order, and regarding them as workers with individual rights and duties, they naturally reasoned that women should not be exempted from the responsibilities of their own acts because they were married. In the ordinances of the Worcester Gild, founded 1467, is the following:—

“Also yf eny man’s wyf becom detto^r or plegge, or by or sylle eny chaffare or vitelle, or hyn eny house by har lyf, she to answere to hym or hur that hath cause to sue, as a woman soole marchaunt; and that an acion of dette be mayntend agenst hur, to be conceyved aft^r the custom of the seid lite, w^tout nemyng her husband in the seid accyon.”[9]

It has been pointed out that under the gild system women were employed to a much smaller extent in manufactures than under the domestic system which followed.[10] An ordinance of the fullers of Lincoln places a restriction on the indiscriminate employment of women, and limits it to the wives and servants of the masters. Whatever their position in the lower branches of trade, they had full access to the higher departments. They had governing power and the privileges which belong to members of corporate bodies. The changes that followed on the break-up of the gilds tended to throw women into the rank and file of workers and to exclude them from the more responsible posts.

The principle of equality is everywhere apparent in the ordinances relating to labour. In the reign of Edward IV. an ordinance was made in the borough of Wells, that apprentices of both sexes to burgesses would become burgesses themselves when their term of service was accomplished. No distinction was made between male and female. Statutes relating to apprentices in London and elsewhere apply equally to both girls and boys. It was taken as a matter of course that a parent might wish to apprentice his daughter just as much as his son. The proclamation in 1271, relating to the woollen industry, expressly permitted “all workers of woollen cloths, male and female, as well of Flanders as of other lands,” to come to England to follow their craft. Sometimes, indeed, the women appear to have enjoyed an advantage, as in the statute of 1363 which ordered that “handicraftsmen should use but one mystery,” while workwomen were free to work in their accustomed way. In later times a theory grew up that women were competitors, not co-workers, with men. There are numbers of people who on this ground would hinder women from engaging in commercial pursuits and earning their own livelihood. They argue that it is better for women to be dependent upon their male relatives than to make their own way in the world. That women should seek to achieve economic independence was, until recently, quite against the general sentiment. But the force of circumstances has proved stronger than theories: a surplus female population and changes in social life have upset the notion that women were created solely for family life, and that they were to be the spenders, not the providers.

CHAPTER V.
THE MEDIÆVAL NUN.

Dominance of the Church in the Middle Ages—The Conventual System—Occupations of the Nuns—Power of the Abbesses—Disputes between Religious Houses and the Laity—Latitude allowed to Nuns—Convents Educational Centres—Effects of the Suppression of Convents—Complaints of the Laity.

Throughout the Middle Ages the Church was the dominant power in England. It may seem absurd to characterize a period extending over several centuries by any one feature, but the supremacy of the Church is so marked as to stamp the whole of that changeful time. The relationship of the Church to the laity was that of guardian and ruler, in temporal as well as spiritual matters. Where the Church did not inspire reverence it inspired fear, and where there was not willing obedience there was dependence.

The position of women with regard to the Church was affected by this attitude of the Church to the world. As servants of this mighty organization, women who embraced a religious life were lifted by the Church’s power and influence above the heads of the rest of the community, of whom they were frequently the teachers, helpers, advisers, and general benefactors in time of need. It was in the nunneries that the education of girls of all classes was carried on. Convent schools were the only schools either for rich or poor, and the “sisters” the only women able to qualify themselves to become instructors.

The nuns, again, were the chief dispensers of charity. The lady of the manor might be a bountiful almsgiver, but she could not be so well acquainted with the needs of the poor as the convent sisters who tended them in sickness and knew all the troubles of their daily life. The convent was a centre of help and enlightenment. Even where the nuns never left their walls, they were constantly employed on benevolent works. Philanthropy, in the Middle Ages, was a religious duty, but it was only in connection with the Church that it was practised in an organized way. The dole-giving at great houses was scarcely philanthropy; it was part of the household system, and the recipients of the bounty regarded it almost as a right.

Women’s position in relation to the Church assumes a different aspect when the limitations of ordinary life are considered. There was no social work in which women could engage carried on independently of the Church. The “religious” had the field to themselves. The lay worker was of no importance whatever unless she had wealth which enabled her to confer benefits, or dignities which gave her prominence. Through the convent the Church’s influence was diffused among the people, its doctrines leavened the minds of the masses, its authority and power were felt everywhere among high and low.

Their relation to the Church elevated women to a plane above the common level. For although they were in subjection to their spiritual rulers, those rulers had authority far greater in civil matters than their successors can boast of in the present day. The humble nun who went about with downcast eyes, who was taught to obey without questioning, was the instrument of a power greater than that of kings. In the progress of civilization, it was women who, through the Church, gained the firstfruits of culture.

In the Middle Ages, and, indeed, as long as the conventual system lasted as part of the English Church, the nun was teacher, philanthropist, doctor, and nurse. Her duties were by no means confined to the cloister. At Gloucester, where there was a Benedictine convent, the nuns went about among the people, teaching, advising, consoling, and discoursing on subjects with which convent sisters are supposed to have little acquaintance. Nuns were sometimes accused of giving too much attention to housewifery. Among other things, they are said to have composed moral tales like those of Hannah More and her sisters, and to have read them to the village maidens.

“The English nuns,” writes Paul Casenigo, a Venetian traveller of the sixteenth century, “gave instruction to the poorer virgins (peasants) as to their duties when they became wives; to be obedient to their husbands, and to give good example.”

The poorer folk felt it a great loss when the kindly sisters—many of them gentlewomen of good birth—to whom they were accustomed to carry all their troubles, were ruthlessly dispersed at the time of the dissolution of the religious houses. The nunnery of Godstow, near Oxford, famous for its unblemished reputation, was quite a centre of benevolence. There were no clothing clubs in that or any other neighbourhood, no “mothers’ meetings,” no sewing-parties for making garments for the poor, no penny dinners, no dispensaries, no hospitals. If it had not been for the good nuns of Godstow, the poor must have suffered greatly. Henri Ambère, a French architect, says of Godstow, that he saw no such excellent nuns in his own country as were to be seen in that convent. Warm clothing was made for the poor, who, in winter, had to bar out the light to keep out the cold by means of shutters, and whose chimney consisted of a simple hole in the roof through which the rain and wind poured down, while the smoke struggled up ineffectually. Were there any sick? it was the nuns to whom application was made for remedies, which were compounded within the convent walls. Were there any infirm and starving? there was food for them at the convent. Was there a wedding in the village? it was the nuns who provided the bride with her simple trousseau. Every year provision was made to give a couple of suits of clothing and the sum of ten shillings to six peasant girls on their marriage.[11]

Thus we find the nuns carrying on, as part of their service to the Church, all kinds of secular work, now largely performed by lay members of the community.

With the fall of the monastic houses much of this work was dropped. The Anglican Church, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, had no such hold on the people at large as the Romish Church had acquired. As an organization for dealing with the masses, it was particularly ineffective. In this century the Church has regained something of what it lost, or rather it has covered ground which it had never before really occupied. One of the most striking features of its remarkable activity at the present day is the large part taken by women. Without the service of women, the Church would be unable to carry on the greater portion of its secular work. But there is a noticeable difference between the way in which the work is undertaken in the present age and in what are called the Ages of Faith. That which is now accomplished by co-operation among individuals, without reference to any authority, was formerly only practicable under the ægis of the Church. Women could never have performed that kind of ministry to the community without the help of the Church. It was in the convent they obtained the qualification and the means, and it was the convent garb that protected them in the discharge of their outside duties.

There is another aspect in which women’s relation to the Church may be studied. The heads of the great religious houses were necessarily persons of importance, with privileges and great responsibilities. They had considerable wealth at their disposal, and in authority and influence they ranked among the nobles of the land, to whom they were often allied by birth. An abbess was a person to be reckoned with and consulted as much as an abbot. In the age of double monasteries she was superior in power. The origin of these institutions is a little obscure. It has been thought that the idea was derived from Gaul, whither the Saxon princesses were sent to be educated. Dr. Lingard has another theory. He considers the double monasteries were formed to prevent the nuns from having any excuse for intercourse with laymen. A convent could not be worked entirely by women; prejudice and tradition, as well as the limitations of sex, stood in the way.

“The functions of the sacred ministry had always been the exclusive privilege of the men, and they alone were able to support the fatigues of husbandry and conduct the extensive estates which many convents had received from the piety of their benefactors.”

Men were necessary evils; the question was how to make their presence innocuous.

“It was conceived that the difficulty might be diminished if it could not be removed, and with this view some monastic legislators devised the plan of establishing double monasteries. In the vicinity of the edifice destined to receive the virgins who had dedicated their chastity to God, was erected a building for the residence of a society of monks or canons, whose duty it was to officiate at the altar and superintend the external ceremony of the community. The mortified and religious life to which they had bound themselves by the most solemn engagements was supposed to render them superior to temptation; and, to remove even the suspicion of evil, they were strictly forbidden to enter the inclosure of the women, except on particular occasions, with the permission of the superior, and in the presence of witnesses. But the abbess retained the supreme controul over the monks as well as the nuns; their prior depended on her choice, and was bound to regulate his conduct by her instructions.”

Double monasteries were very common in Ireland, and were in vogue in England during the first eight or nine centuries of the Christian era. Over these institutions it was always a woman who had supreme rule. No abbot could be persuaded to take charge of a community of nuns, so the abbess ruled over both monks and nuns.

“The whole together formed a sort of vast family, maternity being the natural form of authority—all the more so as the neophytes were often admitted with all their dependents, as was Cædmon, who entered Whitby with all belonging to him, including a child of three years old.”[12]

Abbesses were great people in Saxon times—princesses of royal blood, like St. Hilda, who was grand-niece to Edwin, the first Christian king of Northumbria. St. Ethelburga, who also lived in the seventh century, and became abbess of Brie, in the diocese of Meaux, was the daughter of a king of East Anglia; St. Ethelreda, who built Ely monastery, was a queen, and the daughter of a king; St. Werburga of Ely was the daughter of Wulfere, king of Mercia, and niece of Ethelred, who put her to rule over all the female religious houses. With her royal uncle’s aid, she founded Trentham and Hanbury in Staffordshire, and Wedon in Northamptonshire. There were great solemnities when she became a nun and entered the Abbey of Ely, of which St. Audry was then the head. Her qualities and character were celebrated in the following lines:—

“In beaute amyable she was equall to Rachell,
Comparable to Sara in fyrme fidelyte,
In sadnes and wysedom lyke to Abygaell:
Replete as Delbora with grace of prophecy,
Equyvalent to Ruth she was in humylyte,
In pulchrytude Rebecca lyke Hester in Colynesse,
Lyke Judyth in vertue and proued holynesse.”[13]

For an abbess the cloister rule was relaxed. She might come and go, and see whom she pleased. Her signature is to be found to the charters of the realm, and she had the right to assist in the deliberations of the national assemblies.

“In 694 abbesses were in so great esteem for their sanctity and prudence, that they were summoned to the Council at Becanceld (in Kent), and the names of five (not one abbot) subscribed to the constitutions there made.”

This is the first time they are mentioned as taking part in a synod. The Abbess Elfleda was present at a council held respecting the affairs of Wilfrid, Bishop of Leicester, early in the eighth century. She attended to represent her late brother, King Alcfrid, who died in 705, and who, in the matter of Bishop Wilfrid, had, she asserted, promised, on his death-bed, to stand by the decree of the Apostolic See.

Abbesses were also summoned to attend or to send proxies to the King’s Council in later times, as in 1306, when four abbesses

“were cited to the Great Council held to grant an aid on the knighting of the Prince of Wales—an assembly which, although not properly constituted, exercised some of the functions of a parliament.”[14]

The Parliamentary writ bears the names of the abbesses of Wilton, Wynton or Winchester, Shaftesbury, and Barking, then spelt Berkeyngg. Abbesses were required to furnish military service by proxy.

The Saxon abbesses were invested with immense powers, and owed obedience to none save the Pope. Much of the deference paid them was doubtless on account of their high rank, abbesses being always of good birth, and frequently of royal blood. In later times, as well as in the Saxon era, this was the case. Anne, Duchess of York, mother of Edward IV., was prioress of Sion monastery.

Abbesses seem to have been tenacious of their privileges, and to have known how to resist the encroachments of the clergy when any interference was attempted. It has been said that they claimed the right to ordain. At the same time, they were subject to deposition if they abused their power or were inattentive to their duties. The nuns would carry their complaints to the bishop, who would occasionally take the superintendence of a nunnery into his own hands instead of appointing any abbess—perhaps dividing the immediate governance between two of the nuns. It was the duty of an abbess not only to look after the internal affairs of the convent, but to see that the necessary repairs to the building were carried out.

The powers of an abbess varied according to period and place, for while in some cases they were free to act pretty much as they pleased, in others they were subject to strict rules, and had their liberty much curtailed.

“By a council near Paris, in the eighth century, it is ordered that the bishop, as well as the abbess, may send a nun misbehaving herself to a penitentiary; that no abbess is to superintend more than one monastery, or to quit the precincts except once a year, when summoned by her sovereign; and that the abbess must do penance in the monastery for her faults by the bishop’s direction. Charlemagne enacted that the bishop must report to the Crown any abbess guilty of misconduct, in order that she might be deposed. Abbesses were forbidden, in the reign of his successor, to walk alone, and thus were placed, in some degree, under the surveillance of the sisterhood. Charlemagne prohibited abbesses from laying hands on any one, or pronouncing the blessing.”[15]

On account of the property and lands belonging to convents, abbesses and prioresses were constantly brought into relationship with the outer world, and not always in a very pleasant way. The command which they had over the fiefs of the convent was a frequent source of friction with the laity. In 1292 the Prioress of Mynchin Buckland, in Somersetshire, was a party in a suit, together with a widow and two men, touching the right of common pasture in an appurtenance of the convent. The case went against the religious house, but the prioress and the widow both escaped paying their share of the costs on the plea of poverty.[16]

Sometimes troubles arose from the interference of the clergy. In the fourteenth century a diocesan official made himself very disagreeable to the sisters of Mynchin Buckland priory, demanding to see their title to certain churches which they had held from time immemorial. The sisters replied by demanding, in their turn, to see his commission, whereupon he grew indignant, and imposed upon them a heavy fine for contumacy. The case was carried to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who at once stopped the proceedings of the diocesan official, and restored quietude to the convent.

In the reign of Edward III. we find a prioress suing a sheriff for recovery of a pension granted to her convent in the reign of Henry III. As the sheriff positively refused to pay, the prioress carried the case to the King’s Court, where the recalcitrant sheriff was thoroughly beaten. Lands granted to a convent without due formalities sometimes created difficulties, as in the reign of Henry IV., when the Prioress of Mynchin Barrow found her claim to a meadow which had been granted without the royal licence was bringing her into conflict with the laity. However, her rights were maintained after full examination.

The head of a religious house, whether abbot or abbess, had a great many secular duties. At Sion Monastery, which was a double house founded by Henry V. in 1415, the abbess who was at the head had the charge of all the money derived from the proceeds of the nuns’ work, and also from the endowments of the foundation. In the charter it is set forth—

“that the abbess of the aforesaid place and her successors shall be persons able to prosecute all manner of causes and actions real and personal and mixed, of whatsoever nature or kind they may be, and to answer and defend the same as well in courts spiritual as temporal, before all judges, ecclesiastical and secular whatsoever.”[17]

There was very often a certain amount of Church patronage connected with a religious house. The Prioress of Cannyngton Priory had the living of a church in the diocese of Exeter in her hands, and frequently ecclesiastics were admitted to Holy Orders on titles granted by a prioress and her convent.

Mynchin Buckland, which was a preceptory as well as a priory, was disturbed in 1270 by the conduct of the preceptor, who did not like to see any money paid for the maintenance of the sisterhood. This was the only community of women established by the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.

Nunneries were generally under the superintendence of the local clergy, who were responsible to the bishop, and if there were any disorders, an official was sent down to inquire into the matter. The diocesan officials had large powers, and used them liberally.

Another thing which brought the convent into relationship with the outer world, was the fact of their being used as houses of entertainment, and as places of residence for ladies temporarily in want of a home.[18] Visitors were constantly sent by the bishop to lodge and board at a priory. These ladies always lived at their own cost, and it was specially enjoined that they were not to interfere with the routine of the establishment. They brought their own servants, and sometimes remained a considerable time. These visitors never came without an express order from the bishop.

The kind of accommodation to be found in a priory may be gathered from the following inventory of the contents of a chamber allotted to one “Dame Agnes Browne” in the priory of Minster, in Sheppey.

“Stuff given her by her frends:—A fetherbed, a bolster, 2 pyllows, a payre of blankatts, 2 corse coverleds, 4 pare of shets good and badde, an olde tester and selar of paynted clothes and 2 peces of hangyng to the same; a square cofer carvyd, with 2 bed clothes upon the cofer, and in the wyndow a lytill cobard of waynscott carvyd and 2 lytill chestes; a small goblet with a cover of sylver parcell gylt, a lytill maser with a brynne of sylver and gylt, a lytell pese of sylver and a spore of sylver, 2 lytyll latyn candellstyks, a fire panne and a pare of tonges, 2 small aundyrons, 4 pewter dysshes, a porrenger, a pewter bason, 2 skyllotts

There were occasions when the lady abbess dispensed hospitality on a liberal scale. At the convent of Sion, in London, it was the custom at Pardon-time, which was in the month of August, for the Court of Aldermen to pay a visit to the convent.[19] It will easily be imagined that a good deal of preparation had to be made for these visitors. They recognized the demands made upon their hostess by sending the appropriate acknowledgment of a present of wine.

In the Middle Ages nuns were allowed, under regulations, to go out and see their friends. The rule was stricter in earlier periods, and strictest of all among the double monasteries. In the first six centuries of the Christian Church, the general rule seems to have been that—

“a virgin was not permitted to leave the house or monastery except for special reason, and no one had access to her but bishop or priest.”

But this was subject to variation, for in the Roman Church, about the fourth century, we read of “holy virgins” frequenting the public baths, for which they were blamed by Cyprian. A male or female devotee could, at any time, return to the world and marry.[20]

The injunctions made in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries show that a great deal of latitude was permitted to nuns. It was not until the sixteenth century that they were rigidly confined to the cloister.[21] In the Middle Ages they were not much more under restraint, in the matter of visiting, than girls in boarding-schools and colleges at the present day. They were not to go out without express permission, or to wander from house to house when they went into the neighbouring city. Sometimes it was enjoined that they should only go to places from which they could return the same day, and at other convents they were permitted to remain out one night. In one case they were not to go “beyond the vill except from great and lawful cause; in pairs and in nun’s habit.”

The Superior of the convent of St. Helen’s, London, was admonished to be circumspect, and not to let women have the keys of the postern door, “for there is moche comyng in and oute at unlefull tymys.” That there should be any coming and going of this promiscuous kind shows how much latitude was allowed in religious houses.

Anchoresses were under stricter rules, and had less to do with the outer world.

“An anchoress must not become a schoolmistress, nor turn her anchoress-house into a school for children. Her maiden may, however, teach any little girl concerning whom it might be doubted whether she should learn among boys, but an anchoress ought to give her thoughts to God only.”[22]

The directions to the women attending on the anchoresses show how in the thirteenth century, when these rules were framed, personal cleanliness was still regarded as among the errors to be avoided, or at least a luxury to be renounced.

“Let no man see them unveiled, nor without hood. Let them look low. They ought not to kiss, nor lovingly embrace any man, neither of their acquaintance nor a stranger, nor to wash their head, nor to look fixedly on any man, nor to romp nor frolic with him.”

But the anchoresses themselves have permission to wash “whensoever it is necessary, as often as ye please.” They were enjoined to occupy themselves with useful and charitable work. “Assist with your own labour, as far as ye are able, to clothe yourselves and your domestics as St. Jerome teacheth.”

In 1534 the Archbishop of York wrote, among other things, the following injunction to the convent of Synningthwaite:—

“We enjoin and command by these presents that from henceforth the prioress shall diligently provide that no secular nor religious persons have resort or recourse at any time to her or any of the said sisters on any occasion, unless it be their fathers and mothers or other near kinsfolk.”

Also—

“We command and exhort the said prioress in virtue of obedience that she from henceforth license none of her sisters to go forth of the house unless it be for the profit of the house, or to visit their fathers and mothers or other their near kinsfolk, if the prioress shall think it convenient, and then the prioress shall assign some sad and discreet religious sister to go with her, and that she limit them a time to return, and that they be not over long out of the monastery.”

The nuns were accustomed to indulge in amusements, for there are injunctions which show that games and revels were common.

“Also we enjoyne you that alle daunsyng and revelyng be utterly forborne among you except Christmasse and other honest tymys of recreacyone, among yourse selfe in absence of seculars in all wyse.”

The nuns of Appleton, Yorkshire, were apparently rather jovial, and the prioress is commanded in 1489 to see “that none of your sisters use the alehouse nor the watersyde where course of strangers dayly resorte.” It was likewise ordered that the sisters should not—

“bring in, receave, or take any layman religious or secular into the chambre or any secrete place day or night, nor with thaim in such private places to commine, ete or drinke, without lycence of your priorisse.”

At Sion Monastery the rule was stricter.

“Conversation with seculars was permitted only in company and with the license of the abbess from noon to vespers, and this only on Sundays, and the great feasts of the Saints, not however by going out of the house, but by sitting at the appointed windows; for to none was it permitted after their entrance to leave the cloisters of the monastery. If any sister desired to be seen by her parents or honest and dear friends, she might, with the permission of the abbess, open the window occasionally during the year; but if she did not open it, a more abundant reward was assured to her hereafter.”[23]

This monastery is described by Wriothesley as “the vertues [most virtuous] house of religion that was in England.” Taine speaks of it in very different terms: “Au monastère de Sion les moines confesseurs des nonnes les debauchent et les absolvent tout ensemble.” Sion Monastery was of the Order of St. Bridget which was reputed to be one of the best. It was suppressed in 1539.

That there was laxity in the government of some of the convents which resulted in idleness and waste of money is evident. The Bishop of Lincoln, Longland, sent very peremptory orders to the Superior of the nuns of Cottam or Cottram, in Lincolnshire, respecting her duties:

“Ouer this I charge you lady prioresse undre the said payne that ye yereby make your accompte openly and truely in your chaptour house afore the mooste part, and the senours of your susters that they may knowe frome yere to yere the state of said house, and that ye streight upon sight hereof dymynishe the nombre of your seruants as well men as women, whiche excessyve nombre that ye kepe of them bothe is oon of the grette causes of your miserable povertye.”

This was in the second quarter of the sixteenth century.

As places of education the convents exercised the most important influence on the outside world. Even in the ninth century children were sent to England from the continent to be educated in the schools established by Theodorus and Hadrian.[24] This is the more remarkable, as in the seventh century there were so few convents in England that many of the nobility sent their daughters to be educated in France. The religious house of Brie, of which mention has already been made, as having a Saxon abbess, received the daughter of Earconberth, King of Kent, during the rule of the Abbess Fara in 640. Eight hundred years later Sir Thomas Boleyn sent his ill-fated daughter Anne, during her sojourn in France, to a convent at Brie to complete her education. It seems probable that it was the same religious house.

In the seventh and eighth centuries, the nuns were as much occupied with literary studies as the monks, reading theology and even classics, copying manuscripts, which they adorned with wonderful embellishments. They were able to correspond in Latin; some were acquainted with Greek, and they appear to have been very assiduous in the pursuit of such literature as was available.

The Abbess Eadburga and her pupil Leobgitha were both correspondents of the famous Archbishop Boniface, who lived in the eighth century. On one occasion Leobgitha sends Boniface some Latin hexameters of her own composition. In her letter she says—

“These underwritten verses I have endeavoured to compose according to the rules derived from the poets, not in a spirit of presumption, but with the desire of exciting the powers of my slender talents, and in the hope of thine assistance therein. This art I have learnt from Eadburga, who is ever occupied in studying the divine law.”

The lines run thus—

“Arbiter omnipotens solusqui cuncta creavit,
In regno patris semperqui lumine fulget;
Qua jugiter flagrans sit regnet gloria Christi,
Illæsum servet semper te jure perenni.”[25]

Another nun, St. Erkenwald, had as a teacher Hildelitha—

“a woman as well excellentlie learned in the liberall sciences as verie expert in skill of religious discipline and life.”

For many centuries, indeed as long as the conventual system lasted, the only schools for girls were the convent schools, where, says Robert Aske, “the daughters of gentlemen were brought up with virtue.” From the educational point of view, the suppression of the convents was decidedly a blunder; and they were not merely schools for book-learning. Among other things were taught the treatment of various disorders, the compounding of simples, the binding up of wounds. The custom of bleeding people for every form of illness, and to ward off possible sickness, created the necessity for some kind of bandage ready prepared to apply to the place where the incision was made. It was common to make these bandages of silk, and offer them as presents.[26]

The pupils were also taught what might be called fancy cookery, such as the making of sweetmeats. Writing, drawing, needlework of all kinds, and music, both vocal and instrumental, entered into the curriculum.

“In the convents the female portion of the population found their only teachers, the rich as well as the poor, and the destruction of the religious houses by Henry was the absolute extinction of any systematic education for women during a long period. Thus at Winchester Convent, the list of the ladies being educated within the walls at the time of the suppression shows that these Benedictine nuns were training the children of the first families in the country. Carrow, in Norfolk, for centuries gave instruction to the daughters of the neighbouring gentry, and as early as A.D. 1273 a papal prohibition was obtained from Pope Gregory X., restraining the nobility from crowding this monastery with more sisters than its income would support.”[27]

Of Mynchin Buckland we read—

“It was, doubtless, also a noted seminary for the daughters of the great neighbouring families. The Berkeleys, Erleghs, Montacutes, Wrothams, Bouchers, and others, were ever at home at Buckland, and learned from the good sisters all the mental accomplishments which they in after-life possessed. Reading, writing, some knowledge of arithmetic, the art of embroidery, music, and French, ‘after the scole of Stratford atte Bowe,’ were the recognized course of study, while the preparation of perfumes, balsams, simples, and confectionery was among the more ordinary departments of the education afforded.”

When the suppression took place, the laity, who enjoyed great benefits from the presence of the religious houses, made ineffectual protests against their dissolution. The famous convent of Godstow, in Oxfordshire, was particularly regretted, as it was one—

“where there was great strictness of life, and to which were most of the young gentlewomen of the county sent to be bred, so that the gentry of the county desired the king would spare the house.”

The abbess herself wrote a long letter to Thomas Cromwell, complaining of the treatment to which she was subjected. Some portions of it may be read with interest:—

“Pleaseth hit your Honour with my moste humble dowtye, to be advertised, that where it hath pleasyd your Lordship to be the verie meane to the King’s Majestie for my preferment, most unworthie to be Abbes of this the King’s Monasterie of Godystowe.... I trust to God that I have never offendyd God’s laws, neither the King’s, wherebie this poore monasterie ought to be suppressed. And this notwithstanding, my good Lorde, so it is, that Dr. London, whiche (as your Lordship doth well know) was agaynst my promotion, and hath ever sence borne me great malys and grudge, like my mortal enemye, is sodenlie cummynd unto me, with a great rowte with him, and here doth threaten me and my Sisters, saying that he hath the King’s commission to suppress this House spyte of my teeth. And when he saw that I was contente that he sholde do all things according to his Commission, and shewyd him playne that I wolde never surrender to his hande, being my awncyent enemye; now he begins to entreat me, and to invegle my Sisters, one by one, otherwise than ever I herde tell that the King’s subjects hathe been handelyd, and here tarieth and contynueth to my great coste and charges, and will not take my answere that I will not surrender till I know the King’s gracious commandment, or your good Lordship’s....

“And notwithstanding that Dr. London, like an untrew man, hath informed your Lordship that I am a spoiler and a waster, your good Lordship shall know that the contrary is trewe; for I have not alienatyd one halporthe of goods of this monasterie, movable or unmovable, but have rather increas’d the same, nor never made lease of any farme or peece of grounde belongyng to this House, or then hath been in times paste, alwaies set under Convent Seal for the wealthe of the House. And therefore my very truste is, that I shall find the Kynge as gracious Lord unto me, as he is to all other his subjects, seyng I have not offendyd.”

The letter is dated from Godstow, or, as it was spelt then, Godistow, and signed—

“Your most bounden Beds Woman,
“Katherine Bulkeley, Abbes there.”

From other convents came pathetic appeals from the helpless inmates, who were threatened with loss of home and livelihood. One abbess wrote to Cromwell—

“But now as touchynge my nowne parte, I most humbly beseche yow to be so specyall good mayster unto me yowre poore bedewoman as to give me yowre best advertysment and counseyle what waye shal be best for me to take, seynge there shal be none left here but myselfe and thys poore madyn.... Trustynge and nothynge dowtynge in youre goodnes, that ye wyll so provyd for us, that we shall have syche onest lyvynge that we shall not be drevyn be necessyte nether to begge nor to fall to other unconvenyance.”

The Prioress and nuns of Legborne wrote, saying—

“And whereas we doo here that a grete nombre of abbyes shal be punnyshid, subprest, and put downe, bicause of theire myslyvyng, and that all abbyes and pryoryes under the value of £200 be at oure moste noble prynces pleasure to sub-presse and put downe, yet if it may pleas youre goodnes we trust in God ye shall here no compleyntes agaynst us nother in oure lyvyng nor hospitalitie keepyng. In consideracion whereof if it may please youre goodnes in oure great necessitie to be a meane and sewter for youre owne powre pryory, that it may be preserved and stand, you shal be a more higher ffounder to us then he that first foundid oure howse.”

When the conventual system came to an end, the relation of women to the Church was materially changed. They were no longer the Church’s administrators and her authorized servants. And while they could not, as before, dispense its alms and hospitality, or impart the knowledge they had acquired in the cloister, they themselves were deprived of its protecting care. At the time of the dissolution of the monasteries the “religious” women did not exceed 1560,[28] but to a large number of others the cloister was a temporary retreat, a possible home, a refuge in time of distress. The effect upon women of the sweeping away of monastic institutions may be considered from various points of view—from the educational, social, as well as the religious side. It may be regarded as the work of a reformer or of a destroyer. Mr. Lecky describes it as “far from a benefit to women or the world.”[29] But that it greatly affected the position of women there can be no question. It loosened, although it did not sever, the close tie which had bound women to the spiritual authority as to a foster-mother. The Anglican Church stood in a different relation, socially speaking, to the people. It was a less personal relation. And the Protestant clergy did not make use of women in any special way as the instruments of the Church. As will be seen later on, the tendency during the first two centuries of the religious revolution, as it may be termed, was to ignore women as workers. The Roman Church, while it plainly proclaimed women to be inferior morally, and by inference intellectually, to men, availed itself to the full of their capacities. Until modern times, the Protestant Church went on its way regardless of the fact that a great unused power was lying close at hand. It was in movements outside the Church that the religious emotion in women first found vent in the Protestant era.

CHAPTER VI.
THE CHURCH AS A SOCIAL FACTOR.

Influence of the Church on women in social life—The twofold conception of womanhood—Canon and Civil Law—Effect of ecclesiastical celibacy.

It has come to be regarded almost as truism that women are more religious than men, that they are, by nature, more devout, more susceptible to spiritual influences. If Matthew Arnold’s definition of religion as “morality touched by emotion” be accepted, it is easy to point to the larger development of the emotional nature in women as a cause for their greater leaning towards religion. But for the present purpose it is only necessary to deal with the manifestations of this impulse; the causes belong to the domain of psychology.

Before considering women’s part in the religious life of the country, it has to be remembered that their part in social life has been largely determined by the Church. For centuries the Church was, practically, the only civilizing influence, the only restraint upon passion and lawlessness, the only protection of the weak against the strong. It was the Church that taught respect for womanhood, that raised the wife from a state of subjection amounting to slavery to a position of dignity in the household. It was in the Church that women sought safety, shelter, protection, livelihood, occupation, when the home was gone, when kindred failed, when life and honour were at stake. The supremacy which the Church exercised over the laity in general was emphasized in the case of women, more prone to render unquestioning obedience to constituted authority.

From the beginning the Church was quick to recognize the value of women’s adherence, and the importance of the services which they could render. By raising women, the Church created a power for its own uses. And women were as quick to respond. They gave themselves freely. Whatever the Church has done for women has been repaid by them tenfold. Their labour, their property, their lives were placed at the disposal of the Church. They gave something more—their freedom of thought, their independence of action. Their minds, as well as their consciences, were in the keeping of the priest.

The Church, while with one hand it raised woman from the abasement into which she had been cast by Paganism, lowered her with the other. When it taught men to pay respect to their wives, when it interfered with the tyranny which placed women in complete subjection to their male relatives, it was that women might come directly under the priestly power. The Church had no intention of setting women free to act independently. It was only a change of masters. This was seen especially about the fourth century, when the clergy had begun to degenerate from their former simplicity.

“Then the men, exiling the women by degrees, took the sole government of the church into their own hands, and assembling together, made what canons they pleased for their own secular advantage. Then were some published against the ordination of priestesses, deaconesses, etc.”[30]

The same thing is observable in the next century.

“Women in most places were denied all ecclesiastical offices, and commanded to be silent in the churches, and so it continued for several centuries even till the ancient faith began to bud forth again (after that great night of apostacy) among the Waldenses, who justified women’s preaching.”

The Church was careful to impress women with a sense of their inferiority. It has even been denied that Christianity—or rather its exponents—did anything to elevate women to a higher social status.

“Das Christenthum brachte der Frau keine Erlösung aus ihrer Erniedrigung. Im Gegentheil! War sie in der heidnischen Welt nur die Sklavin, die Waare, das Hausthier gewesen, so wurde sie jetzt noch ausserdem zum ‘Gefäss der Hölle’ erklärt.”[31]

This remark is borne out by Tertullian’s apostrophe—

“Woman! thou oughtest always to walk in mourning and rags, thine eyes filled with tears of repentance, to make men forget that thou hast been the destruction of the race. Woman, thou art the gate of hell.”

A curious contradiction appears in theological teaching. It is difficult to reconcile the conception of womanhood which found its expression in Mariolatry with that which was given voice to by the Fathers, which proclaimed woman unfit to receive the Eucharist in her naked hands, which forbade her to approach the altar,[32] which taught that she was a temptation in man’s way to try him, which regarded the married state as a condition of sin, and even among the laity exalted virginity and celibacy as a species of sainthood. In a treatise on chastity attributed to Sixtus III., married people are said to risk, though not entirely to forfeit, eternal happiness. St. Martin of Tours considered marriage pardonable, but virginity glorious. St. Jerome spoke of marriage as at best a vice: “All that we can do is to excuse and purify it.” Tertullian was much stronger: “Celibacy,” he wrote, “must be chosen, though the human race perish in consequence.”

The higher conception of womanhood was an ideal only, a theme for poets, a dream of saints; the lower conception was the guide for common life, the basis of everyday teaching. It was this lower conception which, in different ways, determined women’s position in society. Gradually the precepts of the canon law found their way into common law, and the subordination enforced upon women in matters spiritual was extended to matters temporal. The supremacy which canon law obtained is easily accounted for when we compare the disciplined character of all ecclesiastical as compared with lay government, the training of the priest with that of the noble, the ignorance pervading all classes, and the rude character of the legislation administered in feudal society.

The Roman conquest brought the legislative code of the empire into Britain, but with the advent of Christianity Roman law was gradually coloured by ecclesiastical law, and assumed a different complexion. Some writers go so far as to say that Roman law was entirely superseded. Through the law the Church kept an invisible hold upon the people, and compelled subjugation to its decrees. The Church, however, did not need shelter or excuse for any of its acts. It was powerful enough to command obedience to whatever it chose to decree. There was no influence greater, no authority more dreaded. Its rival, education, was but a puny stripling, without armour or weapons.

In the tenth century we find a repetition of the ecclesiastical law excluding women from certain parts of the church. There is a Saxon constitution which runs—

“We charge that at the time when the priest sings mass no woman be nigh the altar, but that they stand in their own place, and that the mass priest there receive of them what they are willing to offer.”

Women were not suffered to penetrate within the altar precincts in the sixteenth century. It is related that Sir Thomas More’s wife did not sit with her husband in the chancel, but in some other part of the church, in what are described as the common parish seats.

The entrance of women within the Church of Durham was limited to a certain point in the nave marked by a blue cross on the marble pavement, in accordance with the rule of St. Cuthbert. One day in the year 1333, Queen Philippa, wife of Edward III., paid a visit to Durham Cathedral, supped with the king in the Prior’s chamber, and retired to rest in the apartment arranged for her husband in the priory. The monks were scandalized, and sought an interview with the king, who bade the queen rise, which she did immediately, and, clad only in her night array, went over from the priory buildings to the castle for the night, beseeching St. Cuthbert’s pardon for having polluted sacred ground with her presence.

Ecclesiastical law affected women very disastrously by the enforcement of priestly celibacy. Although against the rules of the Church, marriage was common among the clergy in pre-Norman times, especially in the north of England. Substantial reasons existed against allowing priests to marry. There were complaints that the married clergy took the Church property to provide marriage portions for their sons and daughters and legacies for their wives, and were generally in the habit of applying ecclesiastical funds to their private uses.

“It is all the worse when they have it all, for they do not dispose of it as they ought, but decorate their wives with what they should the altars, and turn everything to their own worldly pomp.... Let those who before this had the evil custom of decorating their women as they should the altars refrain from this evil custom, and decorate their churches as they best can; then would they command for themselves both divine counsel and worldly worship. A priest’s wife is nothing but a snare of the devil, and he who is ensnared thereby on to his end will be seized fast by the devil.”

In the tenth century, priests were found deserting their wives for other women. No doubt scandals of this kind, and other grave abuses, induced the Winchester Council in 1076 to make a declaration against the marriage of priests. All future marriages were forbidden, but parish priests who were already married were allowed to keep their wives. In the next century severe measures were taken. A Council was convened at London in 1102, when it was decreed that no married priest could celebrate. The controversy on clerical celibacy went on by fits and starts, until the Lateran Council in 1215 definitely pronounced against marriage. Meanwhile the clergy had followed their own instincts, and evaded the ordinances against marriage by taking concubines, like Bishop Nigel of Ely, in the twelfth century. That prelate’s partner was the valiant Maud of Ramsbury, who bravely defended the castle of Devizes against King Stephen, and only capitulated when the enemy, having stolen her son, threatened to hang him before her eyes.

The document entitled, “Instructions for Parish Priests,” composed not later than the middle of the fifteenth century, shows that it was quite common for priests to be married, though the practice was reprobated, and “chastity,” meaning abstinence from wedlock, was enjoined. But those who were too weak to live honestly and uprightly as celibates are told to take a wife. Dr. Jessop states that by the eleventh century country parsons had almost ceased to be married men, though Benedicts were found among them here and there as late as the thirteenth century, when a veto was put upon priests’ marriages.[33] The decrees of provincial councils prove the existence of priestly concubinage down to the sixteenth century.

The worst effects of the celibate system were seen in the sixteenth century. Debauchery was spread throughout the country. As many as one hundred thousand women were ruined by the priests, for whom houses of ill fame were kept.[34] From Carnarvonshire came complaints of the well-to-do laity, that their wives and daughters were not safe from outrage by the priests. Out of their own mouths the clergy are condemned. In 1536 the secular clergy in the diocese of Bangor wrote to Cromwell, that if their women were taken away they would be homeless outcasts.

“We ourselves shall be driven to seek our living at all houses and taverns, for mansions upon the benefices and vicarages we have none. And as for gentlemen and substantial honest men, for fear of inconvenience, and knowing our frailty and accustomed liberty, they will in no wise board us in their houses.”

In this year the Lower House of Convocation presented a memorial inveighing against priestly marriages. But in the reign of Edward VI., what might be called a Permissive Bill was passed for the sufficient reason that “great filthiness of living had followed on the laws that compelled chastity and prohibited marriage.” Under Queen Mary celibacy was again enforced, married priests were ejected from their livings, and even those who renounced their wives were not always secure of their places. Elizabeth had a great aversion to married priests, and openly expressed her contempt for their wives, whom she could not bring herself to receive at Court. But though she demurred a good deal to giving a formal assent to ecclesiastical marriages, the Act of Edward VI. was eventually reinforced, a reaction having set in with the rise of the Protestant party. The Act was hedged round with various restrictions.

“No manner of priest or deacon shall hereafter take to his wife any manner of woman without the advice and allowance first had upon good examination by the bishop of the same diocese and two justices of the peace of the same shire dwelling next to the place where the same woman hath made her most abode before her marriage; not without the good-will of the parents of the said woman, if she have any living, or two of the next of her kinsfolks, or for lack of the knowledge of such, of her master or mistress where she serveth.”

The advantages and disadvantages of celibacy, and the manner of life proper for the married and the unmarried priest, are set forth by George Herbert in his dissertation on the “Country Parson.”

“The country parson, considering that virginity is a higher state than matrimony, and that the ministry requires the best and highest things, is rather unmarried than married. But yet, as the temper of his body may be, or as the temper of his parish may be, where he may have occasion to converse with women, and that among suspicious men, and other like circumstances considered, he is rather married than unmarried.... If he be unmarried, he hath not a woman in his house, but finds opportunities of having his meat dressed and other services done by men-servants at home, and his linen washed abroad. If he be unmarried and sojourn, he never talks with any women alone, but in the audience of others; and that seldom, and then also in a serious manner, never jestingly or sportfully....

“If he be married, the choice of his wife was made rather by his ear than by his eye; his judgment, not his affection, found out a fit wife for him....

“As he is just in all things, so is he to his wife also.... Therefore he gives her respect both afore her servants and others, and half at least of the government of the house, reserving so much of the affairs as serve for a diversion for him; yet never giving over the reins, but that he sometimes looks how things go.”

The ideal wife is thus described:

“Instead of the qualities of the world, he requires only three of her. First, training up of her children and maids in the fear of God; with prayers and catechising and all religious duties. Secondly, a curing and healing of all wounds and sores with her own hands; which skill either she brought with her, or he takes care she shall learn it of some religious neighbour. Thirdly, a providing for her family in some such sort, as that neither they want a competent sustentation, nor her husband be brought into debt.”

In modern times a section of the clergy in the English Church have shown a disposition to revert to the practice of earlier ages, and follow a celibate life. It is part of the ascetic movement which some years ago was rather a marked feature in the Church. But even among those Anglicans who recoil from the term “Protestant,” and endeavour to preserve as much as possible of the forms of Church government which prevailed in pre-Reformation times, there are few comparatively who adopt this species of monasticism.

No doubt marriage has greatly helped to break down the authority of the priest. A man with a wife and family living the domestic life of an ordinary citizen is brought at once to the level of common humanity, priest though he be. He loses that glamour which attached to him when he was cut off from his fellows and set apart on another plane by virtue of his office. Women, more than men, have been in all ages prone to superstitious reverence for ecclesiastical authority. They are still apt to look to the clergyman to guide them in the daily affairs of secular life, not because they consider him better qualified intellectually than other men, but because they have a lurking remnant of belief in priestly infallibility. There are many who make the clergyman a referee on all subjects, of whatever nature, and look upon him as the proper head of every movement, educational, philanthropic, or otherwise, irrespective of his qualifications for such a position. The deference paid to clerical opinion and the leaning on clerical authority are survivals of old habits of thought, weakened in the process of transmission, but having a strong principle of vitality.

The counterbalancing force to the influence of the Church on women is to be found not merely in its acknowledged rivals, intellectual development and the progress of secular knowledge, but in the motive-power of the religious sentiment. It has been justly observed that—

“the clergy of all ages, in concentrating the strength of woman on her religious nature, have summoned up a power that they could not control. When they had once lost the confidence of those ruled by this mighty religious sentiment, it was turned against them. In the Greek and Roman worship women were the most faithful to the altars of the gods; yet when Christianity arose, the foremost martyrs were women. In the Middle Ages women were the best Catholics, but they were afterwards the best Huguenots. It was a woman, not a man, that threw the stool at the offending minister’s head in a Scotch kirk; it was a woman who made the best Quaker martyr on Boston common. And from vixennish Jenny Geddes to high-minded Mary Dyer, the whole range of womanly temperament responds as well to the appeal of religious freedom as of religious slavery.”[35]

A French writer in the middle of the present century, describing England during the Ages of Faith, with its surname of the “Isle of Saints,” as “un spectacle digne des anges,” laments its coldness and lack of virtue under Protestantism. In what he styles this materialistic age—

“la femme est loin, bien loin d’être ce qu’elle fut pour l’opinion publique aux époques de foi vive et ardente.”

The expression of the religious sentiment has taken a different form. It may be less obvious and definite, but in the opinion of one of our modern thinkers it is the mainspring of all progress—

“Nothing can be more obvious,” writes Mr. Kidd,[36] “as soon as we begin to understand the nature of the process of evolution in progress around us, than that the moving force behind it is not the intellect, and that the development as a whole is not in any true sense an intellectual development.

* * * * *

“The intellect is employed in developing ground which has been won for it by other forces. But it would appear that it has by itself no power to occupy this ground; it has not even any power to continue to hold it after it has been won, when these forces have spent and exhausted themselves. The evolution which is slowly proceeding in human society is not primarily intellectual, but religious in character.”

CHAPTER VII.
ALMSGIVING IN OLDEN TIMES.

Almsgiving at the monasteries—Charity dispensed by private families—Bequests of ladies for the relief of the poor—Action of the Church—Change in the conception of the duty of almsgiving—Needlework for the poor—Modern gilds—Charity at the present day.

In the days preceding the poor law—that is, before the dissolution of the monasteries—charity to the poor was regarded in much the same light as hospitality among equals. Just as it was an unwritten law that strangers on all occasions must be entertained, so it was an accepted rule of life for the wealthy to support their poor neighbours with doles in money and in kind. The monasteries were the great dispensers of alms; but every nobleman’s or gentleman’s house had also a number of poor who looked to it for support. The feudal system was in a great measure responsible for this feeling of dependence. Nobody under that system stood alone. The poor were bound to the soil, and their lives were inextricably woven—not always for their good—into the lives of those above them. With the dispensation of doles and the care of the poor the ladies in the households of the nobility were much concerned. It was the business of the mistress to see that the sick were cared for, the needy visited, and that the aged had their wants supplied. Charity was less far-reaching, and had no pretence at organization; it was a part of domestic life, not an outside business to be taken up and laid down at will. What is now done by means of paid officials was then all accomplished by the donors themselves. The charity which now passes through numerous channels before it reaches the recipient went then by a comparatively direct route.

Great families sometimes marked the Church festivals by special almsgiving, and would celebrate marriage anniversaries in the same way. This was the custom in the family of Lord William Howard at Naworth Castle. The giving away of money at other times seems to have been rather spasmodic. The steward of the Howard family frequently records: “To my Lady to give away 20/-.” Besides what was dispensed in that way, there were lists of doles to the poor, such as sixpence to a poor woman; sixpence to a poor leper boy; “To the poor at Armathwate 6d.” (which shows how much more sixpence was worth then); “To the pore at Carlyle 1/6.” There was giving at funerals too; the steward records, “Bestowed in bread and beer at the buriall of the plumber 5/-,” among the extraordinary payments; where we also find items for shoemending recorded, such as, “Mending a pair of shoes 4d.” It was customary for a person who had any property at all to leave a sum of money to be given to the poor on the day of his or her burial. Thus Mrs. Susannah Eyre, a widow of substantial means who lived in the seventeenth century, left twopence a piece for the poor who should attend her funeral, besides a bequest of goods and chattels to be distributed among the poor of specified districts.

Great ladies usually recognized their duties among the poor, not only by giving doles, but by founding almshouses. There were, probably, not many who actually maintained a number of poor within their own walls like Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond. This celebrated lady used to maintain twelve poor people under her roof when she retired to her manor of Woking, where Dr. John Fisher acted as her confessor and almoner.

Nearly every lady of distinction did something of a permanent nature for the relief of the poor. The famous Bess of Hardwick, in the midst of her building of palaces, did not forget to erect and liberally endow an almshouse for the poor at Derby. The Countess of Pembroke not only built an almshouse, but procured a patent by which it was turned into a corporation. Various are the charities bequeathed by noble ladies in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries for the relief of the poor. Lady Gresham in 1560 left tenements in the city, the rents of which were to be used for the poor, partly in money and partly in coals. Mrs. Frances Clark left £200 to the Skinners’ Company to pay £10 a year for the poor of St. Thomas’s, Southwark. Dame Isabell Gray, of Ogle Castle, Northumberland, left a sum of money for the poor, to be given at the day of her burial. Instances might be multiplied, such as the bequest of Lady Middleton in 1645, of Viscountess Conway in 1637, of Lady Mico in 1670, of Mrs. Ridley in 1716. Money that is now given to societies was then left to individuals.

The care of the poor from the days of Dorcas downwards has always been deemed women’s special work, but it has been largely controlled by the church. In olden times a great lady would choose for her almoner a monk, or at least a priest. The Church has endeavoured to maintain its authority in this respect down to the present day. A large portion of the ancient endowments and funds for the relief of the poor is in its hands. Great ladies and women in all ranks still frequently allow their charities to be filtered through the medium of the Church. The visiting of the poor is carried on under ecclesiastical guidance. The Church in modern times has striven to become the fountain and head of all benevolence, and, as a great organized institution, discourages outside efforts. Women in country districts dispense most of their charity under the direction of the priest, except where there happens to be a great lady who chooses to assert her independence, and is powerful enough to act alone.