Women in Early Modern England (1550-1750)

 

Facts, Trivia, Common Beliefs

 When writing historical fiction set in Early Modern England (1550-1750), it's essential to portray characters and settings with accuracy and authenticity. This period, rich in cultural, social, and political transformations, presents unique challenges and opportunities for writers seeking to create believable female characters.

Women in this era navigated a world shaped by rigid social hierarchies, religious influence, and evolving gender roles. Their lives were marked by various experiences—from work and education to marriage and societal expectations. Understanding these aspects is crucial for writers aiming to capture the essence of the time.

This guide provides a brief overview of women's lives during the Early Modern period in England. From the types of work they engaged in and the common beliefs and societal norms they encountered, here are some insights into the daily realities and challenges faced by women. Whether you are crafting a protagonist who defies convention or a supporting character whose life reflects the typical experiences of the time, these facts, trivia, and common beliefs will help you create a more accurate and compelling narrative.

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 Work

• Unmarried women were legally obligated to work.
• Some women became teachers, opening schools in their homes to teach children to read religious texts.
• Midwifery was a common occupation, requiring a license from the Church.
• Women also worked in the textile industry, producing laces, ribbons, spinning, weaving, and dyeing fabrics from home.
• Other jobs included running shops, printing houses, working in fields (especially farmer's wives), or working as laundresses.
• Girls aged 14 to 21 could start apprenticeships, which were common and contributed to a higher average marriage age for commoners compared to aristocrats.
• Marriage was forbidden during an apprenticeship.

 Relationships

• Couples sometimes became engaged or betrothed through a promise or an engagement ceremony known as handfasting.
• It was illegal to marry someone else while engaged.
• In 1753, the English Parliament adopted the Marriage Act.
• To marry, men and women simply had to declare themselves husband and wife to each other.
• A housewife's primary duty was to her husband, followed by the rest of the household, including children, relatives, servants, and other employees.
• Housewives were expected to treat minor illnesses and know remedies and herbal cures.

Society Trivia

• A poorly regarded job was that of night-soil men who cleaned toilets at night.
• Residents were required to clean the outdoor areas around their homes; failure to do so resulted in fines.
• Donkey milk was a standard drink sold by dairymaids who milked the animal on demand at customers' homes.
• There were separate guilds for white bread and brown bread.
• Dogs known as turnspits helped with meat roasting by running in a wheel to keep the spit turning.
• People owned personal cutlery, spoons, and knives, which they took along when traveling.
• The bodies of convicts could be dissected after death.

Girls' and Women's Problems

• Greensickness, now known as hypochromic anemia, was commonly treated with marriage.
• Terms for menstruation included "flowers" (e.g., "she has her flowers upon her"), "courses," "terms," "catamenia," "unwell," "monthly sickness," "gift of nature," and "a time common to women."
• Under the humoral theory, eating fruits was believed to cause illness due to their wet properties.
• If a woman concealed her pregnancy and the baby died (or was murdered), she was tried and, if found guilty, hanged.
• Wealthy people had wedding celebrations that included a bride cake made of wheat and barley, eaten by the bride and groom as they said their vows. The party might feature a mary-bone pie, filled with marrowbone and oysters, considered aphrodisiacs.
• After giving birth, women were advised by the Church to "lay in" (rest in bed) for 30 days if they had a baby girl and 60 days if they had a baby boy.

Common Beliefs

• It was commonly believed that "a maid that is 'fat, sleek, fair, and full' is better liked than 'lean, lank, spare, and dull'" – Thomas Lodge (1558-1625), A Fig for Momus.
• Sumptuary laws regulated dress codes according to social class.
• Suicide was considered "self-murder," and those who committed suicide had their estates confiscated.
• One girl attempted suicide by smoking spiders (believed to be poisonous), locking herself under floor beds, and reopening old wounds.
• Adolescent girls commonly experienced a religious crisis.

Education

• Protestant women were more literate and were encouraged to keep diaries.
• Puritan women made anagrams from their names to see if they were chosen for heaven or damnation, reflecting Calvin’s theory of predestination.
• Scolding women were punished with the scold's bridle if found guilty.
• During the English Civil Wars, women protested in front of Parliament, including an event in 1643 where 300 women gathered for peace, wearing white ribbons in their hats. The next day, the number grew to 5,000.
• Some noblewomen involved themselves in politics:
• Brilliana, Lady Harley, defended Harley Castle in North Welsh in her husband's absence by putting up an armed resistance.
• Lady Ann Halkett helped the 14-year-old Duke of York, later King James II, flee to France.
• Elizabeth Murray, a royalist, spied for her party.
• By the mid-17th century, only 10% of women in England could sign their names, although more may have been able to read, as reading and writing were separate subjects.
• The keeping of a commonplace book was encouraged by reformed religions as part of "personal reflection on piety."
• In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, Cecilia Fiennes traveled through England on horseback, documenting her experiences. A book based on her memoirs, Through England on a Side Saddle in the Time of William and Mary, was published in 1888.
• Isabella Whitney (1566–1573) was the first woman to write poetry for publication.

 This structure organizes the information by category, making it easier to navigate and understand the various aspects of women's lives in Early Modern England.

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The European Middle Ages Social Hierarchy

The Middle Ages

The boss of the my boss is my boss

Like today, some people lived better than others in the Middle Ages. In fact, very few had a better life than the rest of them. It was all based on wealth (like today). But unlike today, when basically everybody could get rich with proper attitude, tools, and luck, in the Middle Ages, one should have been born into a wealthy family. Access to power and money was limited to a few people. The social hierarchy of the Middle Ages was very different from our contemporary hierarchy and was based on the amount of land someone owned.
Here is the simplified social tree:

The King
He was the head of the state, the boss of everybody else, had the most power, and was the richest of them all. His mom and dad were usually kings and queens, too, and the same was true about Grandpa and Grandma.
Some kings were better than others, and a few of them declared themselves Emperors, which is a bigger, fatter king who ruled over more than one nation.
The king was the boss of the barons, the lords, and the peasants. Sometimes, in some places, they were the boss of the bishops, too.

The Bishops
These people were chosen from within the church. They were once priests but advanced to administrative positions. It looks like they are mainly remembered as tax collectors, which, like today, nobody likes. They ruled over dioceses and were the bosses of all the priests and monasteries within a diocese. They were very rich, and often, they grew powerful and influential.

The Barons
Barons were people who received a tenure, or fief, from their boss, the King. At first, they were knights, and the King gave them a piece of land as a reward for their bravery in a battle. Then, they ruled over that piece of land, acquiring all the agricultural products, selling them, and making money. If one was raised to the noble rank of baron, then their children would be barons, too.
Over the centuries, some barons grew so powerful that they didn’t want to work for the kings anymore and made their own state so they could, too, be bosses.

The Lords
The Lords were people who rented land from the barons (who were given land by the king). So, barons were the lords’ bosses. A baron could be the boss of many lords.
The lords had the peasants work the land for them. They were not as rich as the barons, and many of them lived a simple life, but they had a better social status than the peasants. And they could advance to be barons if they did well in battles and killed a lot of enemies.

The peasants
The peasants were the lower people in the European Middle Ages hierarchy. They made up the majority of people. They lived a simple life, and they worked hard for their bosses, who were the lords. In exchange for their hard work, they usually got bread and beer. They had a very small piece of land that the lord had given them so they could have some other food besides bread and beer. The son of a peasant was a peasant, too, and there was no chance that such a son would, someday, advance to a lord position.

So, between or within these social classes, there were other positions held by people chosen within that respective class. These positions were mainly administrative jobs with little or no influence over the system.

Historians have a name for this European Middle Age Hierarchy: it is the cold Feudal System Or Feudalism, where a feud is a piece of land given to somebody in exchange for some sort of service. The Feudalism system of the Middle Ages is, though, more complex, and I may describe it in other articles.

The art of eating together - conviviality



wikimedia commons
 Giulio Romano, Amore e Psiche,  Palazzo Te a Mantova.

Conviviality is seen as a distinguishing feature between animals and humans. Since prehistoric times, people have gathered to find food, cook food, and eat together. Not only is this conviviality a sign of civilization, but it is also a sign of social status. The richer the meal, the higher the class.

People have organized parties since the Neolithic revolution, when societies started to settle and aggregate around fertile lands, forming communities and building cities. These parties, called banquets, were very often a privilege of the ruling classes. Until the second half of the 20th century, food was consumed for survival worldwide. And it is still a problem these days in some parts of the world. So, only the rich could afford to throw a party.  Some foods were considered a sign of luxury and abundance.

For centuries, the banquets of the rich served multiple purposes: to show off, to make friends, to indebt someone, or to pay respect. And not everybody invited to the party had the same treatment as today. There was discrimination, as we would put it in modern times. The guests were separated by social status: there were sovereigns and vassals and servants and employees. There were even gods invited to come, and they were set at separate tables (later, when the party was over and the guests were gone, the host would eat the meat reserved for those gods).

The hierarchy and power position among the participants at a banquets was shown through the place everyone sat at the table. The higher the position in society, the better place at the banquet table and also the better the food.

A very successful or important party was often recorded in writing to be remembered by the posterity. That’s how we know now when it took place, where, who came to the banquets, what kind of food was served and in what quantities (because the bigger the quantity, the richer the host), and what other events took place, if any.

As time passed, conviviality evolved from a simple act of gathering to an art form to be learned and displayed.