Working Women in English Society, 1300–1620

This is an important study of English women's participation in the market economy from 1300 to 1620.

Marjorie Keniston McIntosh (Author)

9780521608589, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 2 June 2005

306 pages, 15 b/w illus. 1 map 1 table
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm, 0.48 kg

'McIntosh's work deserves a place on the shelves of anyone interested in the history of medieval and early-modern women.' Amanda Richardson, University of Chichester

This study explores the diverse and changing ways in which English women participated in the market economy between 1300 and 1620. Marjorie Keniston McIntosh assesses women's activity by examining their engagement in the production and sale of goods, service work, credit relationships, and leasing of property. Using substantial evidence from equity court petitions and microhistorical studies of five market centres, she challenges both traditional views of a 'golden age' for women's work and more recent critiques. She argues that the level of women's participation in the market economy fluctuated considerably during this period under the pressure of demographic, economic, social, and cultural change. Although women always faced gender-based handicaps, some of them enjoyed wider opportunities during the generations following the plague of 1348–9. By the late sixteenth century, however, these opportunities had largely disappeared and their work was concentrated at the bottom of the economic system.

Part I. Women and Their Work: 1. Women's work in its social setting
2. Studying working women
Part II. Providing Services: 3. Domestic and personal services
4. Financial services and real estate
Part III. Making and Selling Goods: 5. General features of women's work as producers and sellers
6. Drink work
7. The food trades and innkeeping
8. Women's participation in the skilled crafts
9. Turning the coin: women as consumers.

Subject Areas: Economic history [KCZ], Social & cultural history [HBTB], Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], Early history: c 500 to c 1450/1500 [HBLC], British & Irish history [HBJD1]