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
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
Influence of the Church on women in social life--The twofold conception of womanhood--Canon and Civil Law--Effect of ecclesiastical celibacy 85
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
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
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
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
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