Guildswomen in the City of York, 1560‐1700

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes1. As an example of the new scholarship, see Louise A. Tilly and Joan W. Scott, Women, Work, and Family (New York, 1978), esp. 4–8. Since the present paper was written, articles have appeared which add significantly to our knowledge of preindustrial cities and the contribution made by women. See Natalie Zemon Davis, “Women in the Crafts in Sixteenth‐Century Lyon,”Feminist Studies 8 (Spring 1982): 46–80, and Merry Wiesner Wood, “Paltry Peddlers or Essential Merchants? Women in the Distributive Trades in Early Modern Nuremberg,” Sixteenth Century Journal 12 (Summer 1981): 3–13.2. Peter Laslett, The World We Have Lost (London, 1971), 84 ff.; Tilly and Scott, Women, Work, and Family, 25–29; Lawrence Stone, The Family, Sex, and Marriage in England, 1500–1800 (New York, 1977), 50–52, 55–56, 60. Cf. Jean‐Louis Flandrin, Families in Former Times: Kinship, Household, and Sexuality in Early Modern France, transl. Richard Southern (Cambridge, 1979), 186.3. Stone, The Family, Sex, and Marriage, 44–46; Tilly and Scott, Women, Work and Family, 31–33.4. Alice Clark, Working Life of Women in the Seventeenth Century (1919; reprint ed., New York, 1968).5. Tilly and Scott, Women, Work, and Family, 230.6. Ibid., 43.7. Stone, The Family, Sex, and Marriage, 199. For other authorities who concur, see Eric Richards, “Women in the British Economy since about 1700; An Interpretation,”History 59 (1974): 339; Ivy Pinchbeck, Women Workers and the Industrial Revolution, 1750–1850 (London, 1969), 1; Richard T. Vann, “Toward a New Lifestyle: Women in Preindustrial Capitalism,” in Becoming Visible: Women in European History, ed. R. Bridenthal and C. Koonz (Boston, 1977). For an older, contrary point of view, contrast G. Sjoberg, The Preindustrial City: Past and Present (New York, 1960), 155–69. Perhaps the greatest difficulty in describing or quantifying woman's work is to deal adequately with “non‐market household labor,” productive labor which created necessary goods and services but which never reached the marketplace. See Richards, “Women in the British Economy,” 338.8. Clark, Working Life of Women, 9–10. Cf. Judith C. Brown and Jordan Goodman, “Women and Industry in Florence,” Journal of Economic History 40 (March 1980): 73–80; Davis, “Women in the Crafts,” 46–80; and Wood, “Paltry Peddlers or Essential Merchants?” 3–13.9. Charles Carlton, “The Widow's Tale: Male Myths and Female Reality in 16th and 17th Century England,” Albion 10 (Summer 1978): 118–29.10. Stone, The Family, Sex, and Marriage, 60.11. For population figure, see D. M. Palliser, Tudor York (Oxford, 1979), 112–13. For urbanization, see Peter Clark and Paul Slack, English Towns in Transition, 1500–1700 (Oxford, 1976), 11.12. See Palliser, Tudor York; Clark and Slack, English Towns in Transition, esp. chap. 4; A. G. Dickens, “Tudor York,” and G. C. G. Forster, “York in the Seventeenth Century,” in A History of Yorkshire, The City of York, Victoria History of the Counties of England (London, 1961); Barbara M. Wilson, “The Corporation of York 1580–1660” (M. Phil. thesis, University of York, 1967).13. York escaped major outbreaks of the plague from 1560 until 1604. See D. M. Palliser, “Epidemics in Tudor York,”Northern History 8 (1973): 52–53.14. D. M. Palliser, “The Trade Gilds of Tudor York,” in Crisis and Order in English Towns, 1500–1700, ed. Peter Clark and Paul Slack (Toronto, 1972), 111.15. For guild registers listing brothers, apprentices, journeymen, and election tallies, see British Library, Additional Manuscripts (BL, Add. MSS.) 33852, 33853, and 33854. Account books are found in BL,. Add. MSS. 38852 and 34604. The accounts are missing only for the years 1579/80 through 1583/84. The guild ordinary is printed in full in Lucy Toulmin Smith, “The Bakers of York and Their Ancient Ordinary,” Archeological Review 1 (1888): 131–34, 215–28. Outside of Smith's comments, no secondary study exists. Sylvia Thrupp has investigated bakers in London; Thrupp, A Short History of the Worshipful Company of Bakers of London (London, 1933). She gives no consideration, however, to the role of either wives or widows in the operation of family businesses. For the weavers' account, see York City Library (YCL), E. 56 and E. 58. Mayoralty court records are in House Books; see YCL, Class B. For printed excerpts through 1590, see Angelo Raine, ed., York Civic Records, Yorkshire Archeological Society Record Series, 110, 112, 115, 119 (1944, 1946, 1949, 1952), and Deborah Sutton, ed., ibid., 138 (1976) (hereafter cited as York Civic Records).16. Palliser, “Trade Gilds of Tudor York,” 93.17. For examples of regulation, see Raine, York Civic Records, 115: 113; 119: 159, BL, Add. MSS. 33852, fol. 61v; YCL, B. 33, fols. 43r, 48, 224. For disputes between guild members and city authorities, see YCL, B. 33, fols. 223r, 235v, 236r, 238, 239r.18. Smith, “Bakers of York,” 216, 226–27, 218. On the other hand, in 1540, tipplers and their wives were given permission to bake white bread under certain conditions; Smith, 134.19. The term “sister” appears only once in the bakers' ordinary when members are enjoined to attend “the buriall of a brother or sister of the same companie.” Smith, “Bakers of York,” 221. The guild register contains several lists of brothers or masters with no female names included; BL, Add. MSS. 33853, esp. fols. 2v‐9v.20. Clark, Working Life of Women, 214; BL, Add. MSS. 33852, fols. 11r‐19v, 29v‐30v; 33853, passim; 33854, fols. 1r‐10r. Baking for wholesale required heavy physical labor to lift large dough boxes, one factor discouraging female apprenticeships.21. In valuable “Comment” delivered at the Southern Historical Association Meeting, November 13, 1980 (Atlanta, Georgia), Dr. Barbara Schnorrenberg questioned whether baking should be considered part of traditional “women's work.” Arguing from archeological evidence, she suggests that in urban settings baking was confined to the largest and richest houses, a practice followed also in continental European cities. Cf. Clark, Working Life of Women, 214.22. Smith, “The Bakers at York,” 222–23.23. Palliser, “Trade Gilds of Tudor York,” 100. When widows did remarry, their new husbands could assume apprentices. See YCL, B. 33, fol. 95v.24. Smith, “Bakers of York,” 222.25. Ibid., 132, 217; Raine, York Civic Records, 112: 131.26. BL, Add. MSS. 34604, fols. 20r, 21r, 27v, 31r, 39v. The year 1594/95 is mistakenly labeled 1593/94.27. Ibid., fols. 39v., 231r.28. For number of bakers, see Wilson, “The Corporation of York,” 310. Number of widows is derived from BL, Add. MSS. 33852 and 34604. Widows were conventionally called uxor, emphasizing that marriage had been their means of entry into the guild. In three instances where marital status is unclear, I have assumed widowhood.29. For John Watman's career, see BL, Add. MSS. 33852, fols. 41v, 58r; 34604, fols, 4r, 10, 14, 16r, 21r, 23r, 29r.30. BL., Add. MSS. 34604, fols. 31v, 32r, 35v, 36r.31. Ibid., fol. 65v.32. YCL, B. 33, fols. 6r, 30, 307v.33. BL, Add. MSS. 33854, fol. 15r.34. YCL, D. 12, fol. 28v; B. 33, fol. 187v.35. BL, Add. MSS. 34604, fols. 74r, 77r, 80v, 84v, 96r, 102r, 181r; 33853, fol. 25r.36. BL, Add. MSS. 33854, fol. 14r; YCL, B. 33, fol. 239r.37. BL, Add. MSS. 33854, fol. 8r; 34604, fol. 109v.38. BL, Add. MSS. 33853, fol. 28v; 34604, fols. 142, 175, and passim.39. YCL, B. 33, fols. 181v, 180v; Smith, “Bakers at York,” 219.40. BL, Add. MSS. 34604, fols. 4r, 31r.41. Raine, York Civic Records, 115: 154. During the 1680s and 1690s, five women regularly paid “contribution money,” apparently so that might bake special cakes, but they were operating within the guild; BL, Add. MSS. 34604, fols. 240r. ff.42. BL, Add. MSS. 34604, fols. 56r, 77r.43. Ibid., fols. 65v and 66r (Uxors Betson and Uxors Smyth); 80v and 84 v (Uxors Kiddall).44. YCL, B. 33, fol. 238 v.45. BL, Add. MSS. 33854, fol. 4r; 34604, fols. 189r, 191r, 222r, 223.46. BL, Add. MSS. 34604, fols. 23v, 31v, 36r, 45r, 48, 51v, 55v, 56v, 59v. A generation earlier another Uxor Binkes was active in the guild; BL, Add. MSS. 33852, fol. 26r.47. BL, Add. MSS. 33854, fol. 12v; 34604, fol. 65r; F. Collins and E. W. Crossley, eds., Index of Wills in the York Registry, Yorkshire Archeological Society, 26 (1603‐11): 11.48. BL, Add. MSS. 33854, fol. 18v.49. Ibid., fols, 1v, 2r, 3r.50. Palliser, “Trade Gilds of Tudor York,” 100.51. The percentage is derived from 257 newly admitted male bakers; see above, note 28.52. Paul Slack, “Mortality Crises and Epidemic Disease in England 1485‐ 1610,” in Health, Medicine, and Mortality in the Sixteenth Century, ed. Charles Webster (Cambridge, 1979), 20; Palliser, “Epidemics in Tudor York,” 54–56; Stone, The Family, Sex, and Marriage, 380. For impact of famine, 1596–98, see Palliser, Tudor York, 124–25.53. BL, Add. MSS. 34604, fol. 113r.54. Parish registers must be examined to reconstitute families and trace the bakers generation by generation. Palliser argues that the method of reconstitution cannot be applied to York because of gaps in registers and migration in and out of the city. Palliser, Tudor York, 114.55. Palliser, Tudor York, 159, 162, and “The Trade Gilds of Tudor York,” 92.56. Raine, York Civic Records, 112: 17.57. Palliser, “Trade Gilds of Tudor York,” 100.58. YCL, E. 56.59. Ibid., fols. 162, 167, 171, 181. Widow Graves received 2s. 8d. from the city corporation for her care of plague victims during the outbreak of 1631; YCL, B. 35, fol. 146r.60. YCL, E. 58, fol. 80v.61. For the status of strangers, see Palliser, Tudor York, 153. Figures are derived from YCL, E. 56. Strangers were not designated by name (and hence not by sex) until 1615. From 1615 through 1630 only two women were weavers in this group. In 1629, three women were cited in the accounts as guild brethren; by 1632 they owed arrears; and after 1634 they were listed among the strangers. In 1634/35, 5 out of 18 strangers were women; 4 out of 25 in 1635/36; 2 out of 21 in 1636/37; and 3 out of 26 in 1637/38. Subsequent entries are illegible or incomplete. In one misdated entry, 2 out of 20 strangers were women; in 1640/41, 2 out of 15 were women.62. YCL, D. 12. Females (both wives and widows) comprised only .03 percent of “masters,” but Palliser warns that indentures are not comprehensive; see Palliser, Tudor York, 130. I have derived a slightly higher figure (one percent) for Norwich; Percy Millican and W. Rising, eds., An Index of Indentures of Norwich Apprentices enrolled with the Norwich Assembly Henry VII‐George II, Norfolk Record Society, 29 (1959).63. YCL, E. 54; Acc. 104 G/3; CC. 7, part 2, fol. 34.64. YCL, D. 12, fol. 39v; CC. 7., part 2, fols. 28r, 31v; Raine, York Civic Records, 115: 48.65. YCL, B. 40, fol. 119r. It is unclear whether the guild or the corporation took the initiative on this issue.66. YCL, B. 35, fol. 112v; B. 38, fol. 35r.67. YCL, B. 31, fol. 85r; B. 36, fols. 165v‐166v.68. YCL, B. 35, fol. 76v. Maud Sellers notes that the corporation had protected “poor citizens and widows” when the company of tallow chandlers was newly established in 1615, but I have been unsuccessful in confirming her reference; Maud Sellers, “Social and Economic History” in Yorkshire, Victoria History of the Counties of England (1913; reprint ed., London, 1974), 3:454.69. YCL, B. 38, fol. 16v; cf. fol. 7v.70. See e.g. YCL, E. 46 and K. 68/1. Female tipplers and brewers are also frequently cited in House Books.71. YCL, CC. 7, fol. 62v.72. YCL, D. 12. The precise figure is .38 percent.73. Clark, Working Life of Women, 34.74. Palliser, “Epidemics in Tudor York,” 56–57.