Tea at Trianon: Medieval Working Women

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, April 6, 2021

Medieval Working Women

It's amazing all the work that can be done in a long dress. From Medievalists:

There is no doubt that women were active participants in the world of artisanal production and retail in the later Middle Ages. The range of their activities was wide, their roles and rank varied, but overwhelming evidence shows that, everywhere, women were involved in trades. This article provides an overview of the roles and place of women in artisanal guilds in late medieval southern France, namely the Mediterranean coastal regions of Languedoc and Provence.

In towns and cities since the thirteenth century, artisanal work was framed by “statutes” of crafts, issued or sanctioned by the local governments, the local lords, or the Crown. Workers were structured in “guilds” or crafts locally described as confraternities, charities, or mestiers (giving us the modern French word, métier, for occupation or profession).

Craft statutes inconsistently mentioned the participation of women in trades. In Toulouse, only five statutes explicitly referred to female workers: the weavers, finishers, candle makers, merchants of wax, and peddlers of used clothing. In Montpellier, up to fifteen trades were expressly open to women. In Aix-en-Provence, where crafts or guilds were organized in confraternities, most statutes mentioned the involvement of women in the religious life of the fraternity, but said nothing about their roles in trades. However, work contracts show that the range of women’s professional activities was broader than what legal documents suggest. Yet, even if hundreds of contracts testify to the professional activities of women, they were underrepresented compared to men, they earned much lower wages, and could only, under certain conditions, access the rank of master in their craft, a privilege largely reserved to men. (Read more.)