working life of women seventeenth century - School of Economics ...

5 8 AGRICULTURE AGRICULTURE 59was usually nominal,' but in other cases thehusbandman was often forced to pay what wasvirtually a rack rent. Few other money paymentswere necessary and if the holding was large enoughto produce sufficient food, the family had little causeto fear want.Randall Taylor wrote complacently in 1689 that incomparison with the French peasants, " Our Englishhusbandmen are both better fed and taught, and thepoorest people here have so much of brown Bread,and the Gospel, that by the Calculations of our Billsof Mortality it appears, that for so many years pastbut One of Four Thousand is starved."'The woman of the husbandman class was muscularand well nourished. Probably she had passed hergirlhood in service on a farm, where hard work, largelyin the open air, had sharpened her appetite for theabundant diet which characterised the Englishfarmer's housekeeping. After marriage, much of herwork was still out of doors, cultivating her garden andtending pigs or cows, while her husband did his day'swork on neighbouring farms. Frugal and to the lastdegree laborious were her days, but food was stillsufficient and her strength enabled her to bear healthychildren and to suckle them. It was exactly thisclass of woman that the gentry chose as wet nursesfor their babies. Their lives would seem incredibly. . . andl 30s. Susanna Suffolke a young maid holds a customary cottage,renteth per annum 2d.A28 Elm. Filoll (widdow) holdeth one customary tenement. Rent per annum26s. 8d.At May Stanes holdeth one customary cottage (late of Robert Stanes) andrenteth per annum 7d.A12 Margaret Dowe (widdow) holdeth one customary tenement (her eldest sonthe next heir) rent 7s. 8d.Among freeholders. Johan Mathew (widow) holdeth one free tenement and onecroft of land thereto belonging . . . containing three acres and a half andrenteth 3d.(Stones, Joiley. 1628. From a List of Copyholders in West & S. Haningfield,Essex.)' Taylor. (Randall), Discourse of the Growth $England, etc., p. 96, 1689.hard to the modern suburban woman, but they hadtheir reward in the respect and love of their familiesand in the sense of duties worthily fulfilled.The more prosperous husbandmen often added totheir households an apprentice child, but in other casesthe holdings were too small to occupy even the family'swhole time.At harvest in any case all the population of thevillage turned out to work ; men, women, and children,not only those belonging to the class of husbandmen,but the tradesmen as well, did their bit in a work sourgent ; for in those days each district dependedon its own supply of corn, there being scarcely anymeans of transport.Except during the harvest, wages were so low that aman who had a holding of his own was little temptedto work for them, though he might undertake somespecial and better-paid occupation, such as that of ashepherd. Pepys, describing a visit to Epsom, writes :" We found a shepherd and his little boy reading, farfrom any houses or sight of people, the Bible to him,I find he had been a servant in my Cozen Pepys'shouse . . . the most like one of the old patriarchsthat ever I saw in my life . . . he values his dogmightily, . . . about eighteen score sheep in hisflock, he hath four shillings a week the year roundfor keeping of them."'Probably this picturesque shepherd belonged to theclass of husbandmen, for the wages paid are higherthan those of a household servant. Four shillings aweek comes to EIO. 8. o by the year, whereas a Wiltshirewages assessment for 1685 provided that a servantwho was a chief shepherd looking after I ,500 sheep ormore was not to receive more than by the year.=On the other hand, four shillings a week would not' Pepys, Vol. IV, p. 428. 14 July, 1667.' Hirt. MSS. ~ iss. Corn. Yar. COU., vol. I. .p. 170.