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Title: Women in English Life from Mediæval to Modern Times, Vol. I Author: Georgiana Hill Release Date: September 17, 2015 [EBook #49990] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOMEN IN ENGLISH LIFE *** Produced by MWS, Charlie Howard, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) WOMEN IN ENGLISH LIFE. Ann, Lady Fanshawe C. Cook, sculp. ANN, Lady Fanshawe. London Richard Bentley & Son 1896 WO M E N IN ENGLISH LIFE from Mediæval to Modern Times. BY GEORGIANA HILL, AUTHOR OF “A HISTORY OF ENGLISH DRESS.” IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. Publisher's Logo 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 v vi vii viii ix 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. x xi xii xiii xv PERIOD I. WOMEN IN THE DAYS OF FEUDALISM. CHAPTER I. A MEDIÆVAL MANOR-HOUSE. PAGE 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 3 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 17 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 26 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 39 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 56 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 85 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 100 PERIOD II. xvi xvii ENGLAND AFTER THE RENAISSANCE. CHAPTER I. FAMILY LIFE AFTER THE FALL OF FEUDALISM. Effect on women of the fall of Feudalism—Characteristics of Tudor England—Observations of foreigners on English-women— Greater liberty allowed to women in England than on the Continent—Social habits and amusements—Women’s education —English family life—Parents and children 113 CHAPTER II. THE SCHOLARS OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. Revival of learning in the sixteenth century—Attitude of the nobility towards Letters and Arts—No age so productive of learned ladies—The Tudor princesses and Lady Jane Grey—Sir Anthony Coke’s daughters—Mary Sidney—Learned women held in esteem—Learning confined to the upper classes—A sixteenth-century schoolmaster on women’s education 126 CHAPTER III. A LADY’S EDUCATION IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. Retrogression in the seventeenth century—Tone of women’s education—Mrs. Hutchinson—Lady Ann Halkett—Mrs. Alice Thornton—Mrs. Makins—The Duchess of Newcastle—General estimation of learning—Changes in social life—Some patronesses of learning 145 CHAPTER IV. GLIMPSES AT GREAT LADIES. Changes in domestic life—Lady Elizabeth Howard’s household at Naworth Castle—The Countess of Sunderland—The Belvoir Castle family—The Countess of Salisbury’s suit—The Countess of Pembroke and the “boon hen”—Bess of Hardwicke—Court ladies—Lady Brilliana Harley—Lady Lucas—Match-making—Seizure of an heiress 155 CHAPTER V. EVERY-DAY LIFE IN THE STUART PERIOD. Puritan influence—Neglect of women’s education—The boarding-out system for girls—Sir Matthew Hale on the education of girls—Manners and customs—Diversions of great ladies—Rules for behaviour—John Evelyn on manners—Effects of the Civil War—Simplicity of home life—Lady Anne Halkett—Position of wives—A contemporary writer on husbands 173 CHAPTER VI. PETITIONERS TO PARLIAMENT. The city dames during the Civil War—They petition Parliament for peace—Reception of the petition—The military called out— Petition from tradesmen’s wives for redress of grievances—Pym’s reply—Women’s memorial to Cromwell against imprisonment for debt—Sufferers during the Monmouth Rebellion—Petition against Judge Jeffreys—Hannah Hewling petitions the king 193 CHAPTER VII. HEROINES OF THE CIVIL WAR. Nature of the struggle—Position of Queen Henrietta Maria—Activity of women on both sides—Mrs. Hutchinson at Nottingham—Defence of Lathom House by the Countess of Derby—Lady Arundel at Wardour Castle—Lady Bankes besieged in Corfe Castle—Lady Lettice Digby defends Greashill Castle—Lady Fanshawe’s visits to her husband in prison —Experiences of a gentlewoman in the West of England—Lady Musgrave and the Parliament—Lady Halkett assists the Duke of York to escape—Lady Rochester and the elections—The Jacobite rising—Flora McDonald 205 CHAPTER VIII. THE MARTYR PERIODS: RELIGIOUS ZEAL AND RELIGIOUS APATHY. xviii xix Religious life in the sixteenth century—Religion the great motive-power—The Lollard persecutions—Protestant martyrs of the sixteenth century—Anne Askew—Women martyrs in the seventeenth century—Persecution of the Quakeresses—Quaker doctrines—Seventeenth-century Anglicanism—Indifference of the Church to social work—Condition of the clergy—Mary Astell and her Protestant nunnery—The Countess of Warwick 235 CHAPTER IX. WITCHCRAFT. Universality of the belief in witchcraft—Persecution of witches in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries—Attitude of the Puritans—Origin of the witch—First use of the term—Enactments against witchcraft—The Essex persecutions—The last judicial execution 261 CHAPTER X. WOMEN AND THE ARTS. Development of the arts in the seventeenth century—Introduction of women on the stage—Corruption of the period— Character of the drama—Wearing masks by spectators—The French company at Blackfriars Theatre—The first English company with women players—Famous actresses—English female artists in the Stuart period—Foundation of the Royal Academy of Arts—Angelica Kaufmann and Mary Moser elected members—Their career—Fanny Reynolds—Sir Joshua’s opinion of his sister’s work—Mrs. Cosway—Mrs. Carpenter—Character of eighteenth-century work—Women’s place in musical art—Musical education in early times—Love of music in the sixteenth century—Instruments played by women— Music abolished by the Puritans—Musical maidservants in the seventeenth century—The first English opera—Purcell’s early work—Performance at a ladies’ school 275 PERIOD III. LIFE IN THE LAST CENTURY. CHAPTER I. MATRONS AND MAIDS. Artificiality of eighteenth-century life—The rôle of the middle-class woman—Scotch domestic life—The old maid—Admiration of foreigners for English women—English dress—Public morals—Contrast between town and country life—A country lady in London—Racquets, routs, and drums—Education of girls—The boarding-school—Habits and manners of the middle class—Le Blanc’s opinion of the English 307 CHAPTER II. THE GREAT LADY OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. London society in the last century—Lord Chesterfield on taste—Coarse language of great ladies—The speculation mania among ladies—Narrowness of fashionable life—Manners and amusements—Difficulties of social intercourse—The founders of Almack’s Club—The passion for politics—Lady Mary Wortley Montagu on women’s training—Some traits of eighteenth-century life 333 PERIOD I. WOMEN IN THE DAYS OF FEUDALISM. xx 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 3 4 5 6 7 8 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 9 10 11 12 13 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 14 15 16 17 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. 18 19 20 21 22 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 i...