What Was Life Really Like for Women in Medieval Times
Summary
TLDRThis video script delves into the various roles medieval women played in the workforce, focusing on jobs like dairy maids, bakers, and brewers. It contrasts the dairy maid's clean work with the milkmaid's labor-intensive fieldwork, highlighting the better wages and conditions of the former. The script also covers the process of making butter and cheese at home, the risks and regulations in professional baking, and the brewing of ale, often managed by women. It underscores the economic significance of these jobs, the gender dynamics, and the potential dangers involved, painting a vivid picture of medieval women's contributions to society.
Takeaways
- 🏠 The script is from 'Halle Medved, or a Letter on Virginity', a medieval English document outlining the housework women were expected to do.
- 👩🌾 80% of medieval women belonged to the peasant class and had limited job opportunities, primarily centered around domestic duties.
- 🥛 Dairy Maid was a prestigious job for medieval women, involving cleaning, milking cows, and producing dairy products like butter and cheese.
- 📊 The Statute of Cambridge in 1388 recorded that dairy maids earned six shillings per year, four shillings less than men but still a notable income.
- 🍞 Cottage cheese production was a common cottage industry where women could make money, using simple ingredients like milk, salt, and vinegar.
- 🧀 Cheese mongering was a business role often filled by women, who sold cheese at markets and managed the entire process from production to sales.
- 🍞 Professional baking was another skilled job for women, with some providing a baking service for others who brought their dough to be baked.
- 🏭 Baker's guilds were established to regulate the baking industry, ensuring the quality and pricing of bread, with severe punishments for those who cheated.
- 🔥 Managing a bread oven was a risky business due to the perpetual risk of fire, as seen in incidents like the Great Fire of London starting at a baker's shop.
- 🍻 Brewing was a female-dominated profession, with alewives running ale houses and breweries, and brewing being a potentially lucrative business.
- ⚠️ Brewing was dangerous work, with records showing accidents like the scalding death of a Brewing Maid, highlighting the risks involved in medieval professions.
Q & A
What is the main topic of the transcript?
-The main topic of the transcript is the various jobs medieval women performed, particularly focusing on domestic and cottage industry roles such as dairy maids, bakers, and brewers.
What is the significance of the Halle Medved passage mentioned in the transcript?
-The Halle Medved passage signifies the list of housework that medieval women were expected to do, highlighting the domestic responsibilities they had upon returning from their jobs.
What percentage of medieval women belonged to the peasant class?
-Eighty percent of medieval women belonged to the peasant class.
What is the difference between a Dairy Maid and a Milkmaid according to the transcript?
-A Dairy Maid works indoors with clean white linens and natural fats, handling cream and milk, and is associated with better wages and a better reputation compared to a Milkmaid, who works outdoors milking cows and is often surrounded by men.
What was the average wage for women laborers and dairy maids in England in 1388?
-The average wage for women laborers and dairy maids in England in 1388 was six shillings per year.
What is the process of making butter by hand as described in the transcript?
-The process involves agitating the cream until it becomes thick and then separating the buttermilk from the butter.
What is a cottage cheese industry mentioned in the transcript?
-A cottage cheese industry refers to the practice of making cheese at home, often using homemade vinegar or crab apples to curdle the milk, and then pressing the curds to make cheese for sale.
What role did women play in the baking industry during the Middle Ages?
-Women in the baking industry either made whole loaves from scratch or provided a baking service in special bread ovens, and were involved in the regulation of the bread's price and weight.
What was the consequence for bakers who tried to cheat the system during the Middle Ages?
-Bakers who cheated the system, such as Alistair Brightnock and Lucy de Pickering, could face severe punishment including imprisonment and public outcry.
Why was brewing often a female profession during the Middle Ages?
-Brewing was often a female profession because most women made their own ale at home, and in the professional world, ale houses and breweries were often run by women known as alewives.
What are some of the dangers involved in the brewing process as described in the transcript?
-Some dangers involved in the brewing process included handling large quantities of boiling water and heavy equipment, which could lead to severe accidents and injuries.
Outlines
🧈 Medieval Dairy Work
The script discusses the medieval English document 'Halle Medved', which outlines the domestic duties of women. It then focuses on the role of a Dairy Maid, contrasting it with a milkmaid's more laborious and less reputable job. Dairy Maids were responsible for cleaning and processing milk, making butter and cheese, and were paid a decent wage for the time. The process of making butter by hand is described, along with the benefits of having a daughter skilled in dairy work for a peasant household. Additionally, the script touches on cottage cheese production as a way for women to earn money.
🍞 Baking and Brewing in the Middle Ages
This section of the script delves into the professions of baking and brewing, which were often managed by women. It describes the process of turning cheese curds into sellable cheese, emphasizing the continuous nature of dairy work. The importance of baking bread and its regulation by Baker's guilds is highlighted, along with the severe consequences for those who cheated the system, as illustrated by the story of Alistair Brightnock and Lucy de Pickering. The script also covers the practice of managing a bread oven and the associated risks, like the Great Fire of London. Brewing, another female-dominated profession, is discussed, including the dangers involved in the process and the regulations that governed it.
🥘 Brewing Ale and its Risks
The final paragraph of the script focuses on the brewing of ale, primarily a female occupation in the Middle Ages. It describes the process of making ale, including boiling the wort, adding flavorings, cooling, and fermenting. The script also recounts a tragic accident involving lady Juliana de Beauchamp's Brewing Maids, emphasizing the hazardous nature of the work. The summary concludes with the steps of fermenting the ale and the waiting period required for it to be ready for consumption.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Medieval
💡Dairy Maid
💡Cottage Cheese
💡Baker's Guild
💡Brewing
💡Alewives
💡Curfew
💡Peasant Class
💡Virginity
💡Experimental Archaeologist
💡Hearth
Highlights
The medieval English document 'Halle Medved' lists housework expected of women.
80% of medieval women belonged to the peasant class.
Dairy Maid was a prestigious job for medieval women, involving working with cream and milk.
Dairy Maids earned six shillings per year, four less than men but still a wage.
Milkmaids milked cows early in the morning before breakfast.
Making butter by hand was a simple process even for novices.
Cottage cheese was a cash cottage industry for medieval women.
Cheese mongering was a common profession for women merchants.
Baking was a skilled profession, with women either making bread from scratch or providing a baking service.
Baker's guilds were introduced to protect the interests of bakers and regulate the price and weight of bread.
Bakers who tried to cheat the system could face severe punishment.
Brewing was frequently a female profession, with alewives running ale houses and breweries.
Brewing was a lucrative industry, even involving members of the nobility.
Brewing involved dangerous work with large quantities of boiling water and heavy equipment.
The Great Fire of London began with a blaze starting at a Baker's.
Ale was made by boiling grains, adding flavorings, and fermenting with yeast.
Hops were not commonly used in late medieval England and were considered a foreign practice.
Transcripts
what kind of position is a wife in when
she comes in to hear her child screaming
the cat at the filch and the dog at the
high her loaf burning on the Hearth her
calf suckling her pot boiling over and
her husband complaining
this is a passage from the Halle Medved
or a letter on virginity a medieval
English document that acts as a really
handy list for the sort of housework
that women would be expected to do
but all of these chores are chores that
they come in to do from somewhere else
where is that somewhere else they're
jobs Medieval women worked
to get an idea of what kind of jobs were
available for your average medieval
woman eighty percent of whom would have
belonged to the peasant class I've come
to Little Woodham living history Village
to Apprentice under the expert guidance
of experimental archaeologist Caroline
Nicolet she's quickly got me dressing
the part
first up on our roster of professions
for Medieval women is Dairy Maid you'd
want to be a Dairy Maid you don't want
to be a milkmaid okay milkmaid you are
out in the field the majority of the day
you are milking cows big animals usually
surrounded but men working showing
elbows oh very bad reputation whereas
the Dairy Maid has the softest hands
because you always are very clean
cleanest of white linens you can
possibly get and you're always with
cream so butter all these very nice
natural fats oh and milk so Dairy Maid
is actually quite good and you can get
really good wages
the statute of Cambridge in 1388 shows
that the average wage for women laborers
and dairy maids in England was six
shillings per year that's about four
Shillings less than their male
counterparts but a wage nonetheless even
if equality was unheard of and it was
preferable to toiling in the fields
so the milkmaids milk the cows and when
would you do that about what time of day
really early first thing in the morning
you don't even get breakfast you get
dressed go out middle cows okay come
back in and let the milk run through
various sieves or cloths to make sure
there's no animal hair or does anything
in the milk and you leave it to set once
that's done you will be able to separate
the cream from the top of the milk and
you get your milk under that so the milk
you can use to make the cheese on the
cream you can straight away use it to
turn into butter
making butter by hand is a surprisingly
simple process even for a total novice
so that's nice and warm now right to
make the butter you need to agitate the
cream
yeah if you look like lotion or
something like that it does and you have
such soft hands afterwards so there you
go look it's actually really getting
very thick really quickly I can't
believe this so we're kind of really
getting it to come together that nice
thick paste and just imagine coming in
off the fields on a cold rainy day like
this and just slathering a nice bit of
butter all over some fresh bread it's
going to be amazing and you are seconds
away from butter because but the
buttermilk will come out and you will
feel it oh my gosh no I can sort of feel
a liquid coming out of it now there's
the buttermilk I'm Blown Away by how
even you know a desk girl like me was
able to make butter this quickly you
know with a good teacher
as a peasant household it made sense to
have a daughter who was a good Dairy
Maid even for a poorer family with just
one cow you'd still have enough milk to
make butter cream and even cheese for
your home
[Music]
but if I wanted to bring in actual money
I'd need to get more creative a typical
cash cottage industry was making cottage
cheese so long as you could get your
hands on some salt and some acid usually
in the form of homemade vinegar
I prefer using cider vinegar or use crab
apples to make ver juice because it has
a nice light flavor because mulled
vinegar from the egg is a bit oh yeah
that's a lot yeah we'll salt it and you
need to over salt the milk so to
separate the cheese curds from the way
that we don't want the acid will do that
so you can pour a bit of vinegar okay
give it a stir yeah I can see
immediately it's just curdling right up
just and the minute it hit look at that
so you're done pretty much that's it wow
really okay white curds on one side and
the kind of yellowy way on the other
side
I can see why this was a popular job for
women with the right resources almost
anyone could bake it so it was a real
cottage industry
that's why it's not uncommon for women
Merchants to appear in medieval records
especially business women often
appearing as cheese mongers
what do we need to go from a cheese like
this to something that you would
actually be able to sell at Market so
once you have the cheese curds you would
get a clean cloth and you would put them
in a cheese mold and you press it so you
add the weight on top of it you would
leave it to mature to become a hard
cheese if you are dairying properly you
have so much milk to process every day
so you have a constant work you get some
cheese on the shell that are mature sell
them at Market some just replace them
and they need to stay there for a while
and it just never ends wow but just
during the dairy season so this is big
business then you've got women who are
looking after 18 some cows you've got
staff who are in there looking after
your cheese you've got staff who are
milking you have real money that's kind
of going around the place if you run a
dairy business women yeah really
another highly skilled profession that
Medieval women are frequently recorded
as working in is professional baking
either making the whole loaf from
scratch or just providing a baking
service in special bread ovens
so that's what we're going to use today
otherwise you would have to make your
dough and bring it to the other to the
baker so you make the dough they do the
baking and you pay them to do that
so if you want to save money you can
bake on your fire but you'd better not
be caught because you're avoiding taxis
basically
bread and dairy products were Staples in
every household your literal bread and
butter so it makes sense that during the
Middle Ages this was serious business
Baker's guilds were introduced to
protect the interests of members and to
regulate controls governing the price
and weight of bread and it could land
you in some pretty hot water if you got
things wrong or tried to cheat the
system as happened to a crafty London
pair called Alistair bright knock and
Lucy de Pickering
they were both Bakers who were running a
bit of a sneaky ruse and what they would
do is when someone brought in their loaf
to be baked someone from their house hid
underneath the table and they made a
secret hole inside the table and they
would pinch off little bits of
everybody's bread loaf they would then
combine all those bits of dough to make
other loafs which they would then offer
for sale they get caught doing this and
there's a huge outcry a bunch of men are
caught as well they're put in the stalks
and the women are both sent to Newgate
jail until all of the tables can be
destroyed so this seems like Kind of a
Funny Story and well frankly it is but
they're literally stealing the bread out
of their neighbor's mouths when they do
this it's incredibly dishonorable and
basically they get in huge trouble for
it because you know when someone is
doing a bunch of manual labor like this
they expect to get the food at the end
[Music]
thank you
[Music]
well I noticed that our fire is dying
down a little bit here do we need to
build that back up it basically is the
end of the cooking day so you would have
to leave it to die down exactly like
that and use this
a curfew a cover fire uh it's come from
so go fuse to stop the Sparks going up
the chimney because of course everything
is made of thatch and as houses are
usually very close together the whole
neighborhood might just go up in flames
you would rake all your Embers put that
on and hope that tomorrow morning when
you remove it you have some nice lovely
red Embers so you can start your fire
again
managing a bread oven was a skilled
business with a Perpetual risk of the
Flames getting out of hand remember the
Great Fire of London famously began with
a blaze starting at a Baker's in the
night
so we've got our bread butter and cheese
but I think I'm going to need something
to wash it all down with my favorite
drink beer
Brewing was frequently a female
profession most women would make their
own ale at home but in the professional
World it remained largely feminized work
as well and Ale houses and breweries
were often run by women known as
alewives now this isn't women's work
that was as accessible as being a Dairy
Maid a brewer with her own large-scale
Brewery was probably one of the
wealthier peasants in fact it was so
lucrative that even members of the
nobility sometimes got involved and it
was another industry that was heavily
regulated with serious punishments for
those who made a mistake or tried to
skimp on ingredients and like most
professions in the Middle Ages it was
hot and sweaty business that wasn't
without its risks
if you dig into the records you can find
evidence of women involved in accidents
as well such as lady Juliana de
Beauchamp her Brewing business was
profitable enough to employ several
female assistants
two of her Brewing Maids were carrying
malt to put in a huge vat of boiling
water in order to make commercial beer
one of them slipped and fell into the
boiling water the huge vat that they had
been using to carry The Malt in fell on
top of her they managed to pull her out
but she was scalded to death and she
died really shortly thereafter so while
this seems kind of cute and a nice thing
to do it's also important to keep in
mind that this is really dangerous we're
dealing with huge quantities of boiling
water you're dealing with really heavy
things so women are doing really
dangerous work all the time
[Music]
thank you
and that's pretty much it so all the
Grain and all the the bits that you
don't want in any case in your beer are
now in the cloth and a lot of the
Maltese left over in there perfect Next
Step I'm going to put that over the fire
leave it to boil and if you had some
that's the point you would actually add
some flavorings to it ghost flowers or
have a elderberries when it's in season
I don't like hops I live in the late
medieval England before hops becomes
really a thing and it's really really
bitter we also see in the late medieval
period as a part of this people riding
pamphlets against the evils of adding
hops to beer they say it's a foreign and
Continental practice in that it leads to
devilry ooh devory
oh
when that will have boiled or will be
boiling we bring it back put it in
another clean wooden tub and leave it to
cool down we'll add some bombs some
yeast from a previous batch of Ale and
we'll leave it there just covered to
begin to ferment and as soon as it
starts
in these right you leave them open so
the fermentation produces gas it comes
out after say a couple of days you can
put a little tap on it but leave it open
and after another day maybe two
depending on the time of the year
normally you have fermented so it means
that the yeast will have eaten all the
sugars from the molds and turn them into
alcohol you then have ale you're fine
well I don't want to wait but I suppose
for ale it's worth it it is
okay
[Music]
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