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HOUSEWIVES AND SERVANTS IN RURAL ENGLAND, 1440–1650: EVIDENCE OF WOMEN's WORK FROM PROBATE DOCUMENTS1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2005

Jane Whittle
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Abstract

This essay examines the work patterns of housewives and female servants in rural England between the mid-fifteenth and mid-seventeenth centuries. Despite the fact that such women expended the majority of female work-hours in the rural economy, their activities remain a neglected topic. Here probate documents, wills, inventories and probate accounts are used alongside other types of sources to provide insight into women's work. The three parts of the essay examine the proportion of female servants employed in different households and localities, the types of work that servants and housewives undertook and the scale and level of commercialisation of four common types of women's work.

(READ 30 April 2004 AT THE UNIVERSITY OF KENT AT CANTERBURY)

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 15 , December 2005 , pp. 51 - 74
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society2005

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References

1 This essay was researched and written during an ESRC research fellowship. The collection and analysis of Kent probate inventories was undertaken during an earlier Leverhulme-funded project jointly with Mark Overton, Darron Dean and Andrew Hann, who I would like to thank for their contributions and help. I would also like to thank Ian Mortimer for introducing me to the Kent probate accounts and providing a subject index.