The Wealth of Wives by Hanawalt Barbara A.;

Author:Hanawalt, Barbara A.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press, Incorporated
Published: 2007-03-18T16:00:00+00:00

8

Women as Entrepreneurs

Women’s economic activities included entrepreneurship and work in various occupations. Women’s work was essential for the medieval economy in both the rural and urban areas, but it was not highly paid, and in urban centers women might move through a variety of jobs, including service, vending, and crafts. Despite London’s law permitting married wives to trade as femmes soles and widows to take over a husbands’ businesses, few women became entrepreneurs. Necessary as female labor was, it had less of an economic impact on London’s capital formation than the money and property that passed through women in the form of inheritance, dowry, dower, and their role in the consumer economy. If women did not contribute to London’s capital formation as entrepreneurs, their labor was essential for the functioning of the city, if they were helping in their husbands’ shops, spinning, or working in service positions. Women were also important to the economy as mothers, household managers, trainers of servants, and caregivers. This unpaid labor was basic for a functioning society and economy. This chapter, however, looks at women in the real estate market, their management of property, and their business ventures.

The number of women who participated in either the market economy or the workforce is impossible to know because of the poor population statistics and inadequate registration of women’s work. Part of the problem of assessing the market role of women in medieval London and in England in general is that the records are not systematic. Unlike some of the Flemish cities, England does not have registers of citizens, runs of records of market taxes and stall holders, membership in guilds, bank records, and so on. In addition, unlike many continental cities, notarial records do not exist, and it is not clear that written records of marriages and other business transactions were systematically used in England. Bonds and deeds are mentioned, but usually when they become a subject of contention. As a consequence, historians of England are often left with lame terms such as “many women must have been engaged in the credit market.”

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