WOMAN
In all ages and in all countries
WOMEN OF ENGLAND
by
BARTLETT BURLEIGH JAMES, Ph.D.
Of Western Maryland College
THE RITTENHOUSE PRESS
PHILADELPHIA
CHARLES II. AND LADY CASTLEMAINE,
DUCHESS OF CLEVELAND
After the painting by W. P. Frith, R. A.
________
Pepys in his Diary, says: "Mr. Pierce, the surgeon tells
me that, though the king and my Lady Castlemaine are
friends again, she is not at White Hall, but at Sir D.
Harvey's whither the king goes to her; but she says she
made him ask her forgiveness upon his knees, and promise
to offend her no more so, and that indeed she hath nearly
hectored him out of his wits."
PREFACE
It is no slight task to follow out the windings of a single thread in the infinite weave of society and by loosing it from the general mesh to show how dependent is the pattern of life and custom upon its presence. Such a task was presented in the endeavor to trace along from remotest times to the present day the influence of woman upon the life and character, the efforts and ideals, of that race which has come to be known as English, although this name may not properly be used until time has spun into the vista of the past peoples as vigorous, if not influential, as the one that stands, the inheritor of their virility, at the apex of modern civilization, whose women, clasping hands throughout the British Empire, form a splendid chain of hope for womankind in all the world.
Whether or not continuity and sequence, relation and effect, have been maintained in the retraversing of the footsteps of woman in all ages of the history of those isles where femininity has flowered in the most gracious blossoms, it remains for the reader to say. Certain it is that unaffected pleasure has been afforded the writer in his attempt to draw aside the curtain that the muse of history jealously employs to shut from view the inner sanctuary in which she preserves those vital relics, the destruction of which by some inconceivable iconoclast would bring death to the world for lack of materials for reflection and inspiration. In treating of the prehistoric periods, although the brush necessarily has been laid broadly upon the canvas, fancy has been kept in the leash of fact, and imagination given no more play than its legitimate function. Still, the results of inquiry into the status of woman at this far remote period furnish a fulcrum upon which to rest the lever of investigation, in order to lift into view the strata of undoubted history of the periods immediately subsequent.
As fast as the widening of social interest afforded the materials for use, the writer sought to employ them, until, like a mountain rivulet, ever widening until it reaches the plain, he found himself embarrassed by the wealth of fact that told the marvellous story of the most notable emancipation in the history of mankind,—the complete separation of English woman from the trammels, inherent and environmental, imposed upon the sex. If the successive chapters disclose the philosophical relations of woman in society, it will be because the reader has not failed to grasp the fact that in any such theme as the one treated mere continuity of subject matter would constitute a chronicle and not a history; and that the writer, while seeking not to make obtrusive the connective tissue, has nevertheless given ample scope for the reflective mind to see that which has ever been present to his own.
As to the actual materials employed in constructing the book, it is sufficient to say that no important writer upon any period of the history of the British Isles or their people has been overlooked, and that the passing over of the political and constitutional phases in order to select the purely social has been an endeavor much furthered by the writers to whom reference is made in the body of the work, and many others who could not be mentioned without burdening the text. Each fibre of the thread of interest has been taken hold of at the point of its appearance, and then not lost sight of until the end. So that if one is interested in the subject of costume, he may find a full and accurate description of dress from the time when tattooing was deemed largely sufficient up to the period of the present, when the variety of feminine attire baffles description. But more serious subjects, such as woman's rights, from the recognition of primal rights in her person to the setting forth of the modern programme under that description, are consecutively treated through the chapters.
A debt of gratitude cannot be discharged, but some recognition may be made of the author's sense of the service rendered him in the writing of this work by Dr. John Martin Vincent, associate professor of history in Johns Hopkins University, whose courses in the social history of England furnished the first incentive to range in that field and a guide through the labyrinth of manners and customs of the English people. Thanks are due to Mr. J.A. Burgan, whose close and careful reading of the proof is not the least factor in the presentation of the book free, as the writer believes, of the errors that only eternal vigilance may exclude.
Bartlett Burleigh James.
Chapter I
The Women of Prehistoric Britain
It is to the unpremeditated contributions of savage and barbarous conditions of existence that we must look for those primal elements of social order which became fundamental in English life and character. Insomuch as those contributions are intimately connected with woman's life and work, they must be sought out and set in order if we are to trace the development of the status of the women of Britain. In doing this, the confines of history proper must be disregarded and the inquiry commenced at the earliest period at which the student of the geology of Britain has been able to discover evidences of human occupancy of the country. If a consecutive account of the history of woman in Britain were intended, we should be content to begin the story with the woman of the Neolithic or Polished Stone Age, for to such remote times may be traced the stream of life and institutions in England; but, as we shall aim not solely at consecutiveness, but at completeness as well in our record of woman's life in the British Isles, it will be necessary to go back even further into the geologic ages, when Britain was still a part of the mainland and its inhabitants the same roving savage tribes that wandered over all central Europe.
From those barren ages of the Pleistocene era, which were cut off from the Neolithic by great stretches of time that cannot be certainly calculated, and during which there was a lapse in the human occupancy of the country, little of value can be derived. Their chief worth for our purpose is the picture which they present of the initial stage of human organization, the study they afford of woman in her relations to a thoroughly savage
In all the progressions of uncivilized life, woman is but a part of the phenomena of her times, but in the history of English civilization she appears as one of its most active forces. These, then, are the two correlated views of woman in the history of English life that will be constantly held in mind during our whole study,—woman as a social fact, and woman as a social factor; showing her as a product, as affected by the customs, laws, or manners of a given time, and again as an influencing factor in the institutions or the manners of those times. Had her life been as circumscribed as that of the women of a cultured people, English civilization would not owe to woman the recognition which is her due as a creative force in the arts, in science, in literature, in religion, and in all the ever-widening circle of human interests. An understanding and estimate of her influence in these more conspicuous relations will depend upon a proper appreciation of the English home as the principal source of the English woman's dignity and power. Much that has entered into the ideals of the English race can be fully accounted for only in the light of home ideals. By such considerations, then, as have been thus far set forth, we shall be guided in our endeavor to tell the story of woman's life in the ages of Britain's history.
The people of the earliest part of the Pleistocene age had no real home life, nor was there any social organization excepting that into which men were forced by the necessity for mutual aid in the struggle with the forces of savage nature. This element of self-protection was the only factor that entered into the organized life of those earliest inhabitants of Britain,—the people of the river-drift and the caves. In this combat between savage man and savage beast were produced the first instruments pointing to civilization,—weapons for defence and offence.
The life of woman among the men of the river-drift was of the most debased order. The only employment of the men was hunting the gigantic savage beasts that ranged through the forests. While the males were in pursuit of the rhinoceros, the lion, the hippopotamus, and the great antlered deer that were a part of the fauna of the whole of that section of the continent of Europe of which Britain in those remote times formed a part, the females roamed through the densely wooded forests whose only clearings were those made by the ravages of fire. Clad in the skins of beasts but little lower in the scale of being than themselves, and with their naked offspring about them, they wandered about in search of berries or, with no better aids than sharpened sticks, dug up the roots which they dried and stored for the days when the results of the chase fell short of the needs of the people. On the home-coming of the hunters to the place where, in their nomadic wanderings, they had erected temporary shelters, the women prepared the miserable meal. By skilfully rubbing together pieces of hard wood, a fire was soon obtained; if fortune had attended the chase, the hastily skinned animals were cut up with flint flakes, and the meat was thrown upon the stones placed in the fire for that purpose. There were no niceties of taste to be considered, so the half-cooked and badly smoked flesh was snatched from the fire and eaten with no more decorum than might be found in the meals of the cave-hyena that, under the shadows of night, skulked through the underbrush and noisily devoured the remnants of the hunters' feast.
On the day following the hunt, the women undertook the arduous work of curing the skins of the slain animals. In the initial stage of the process they used stone scrapers, sharp of edge and probably set in bone handles. Hundreds of these implements have been found. The women acquired great dexterity in this, one of their customary employments; and while the men lounged about, resting from the fatigue of the hunt, or occupied themselves with painting their bodies with ochre, or tracing, with a splinter of stone, rude devices on pieces of polished reindeer antler, the work of the women went industriously on.
Men of such undisciplined natures as those of the people of the river-drift could not exist together harmoniously; very little, indeed, was necessary to embroil them in bitter strife. Their women were a frequent cause of bloody encounters, a circumstance which was due to the fact that there was no permanence in the relations of the sexes; such rights—seldom individual—to the women as were vested in the men were always those acquired by brute force, and held good only so long as the fancy or strength of the men permitted. In such a promiscuous society there was nothing to suggest the home of civilization. To men, women simply represented their chief possession and were held by them in common, like other forms of property.
Such an age was almost as barren of material utilities as of moral conceptions; so that one looks in vain for evidence of the knowledge of such arts as are commonly associated with the life of women in savage societies. Basket work, weaving, and spinning were occupations of which, it is thought, the women of those times knew nothing. Pottery was unknown; gourds served for drinking cups and for the holding of liquids, and were used also for cooking. Among the memorials of woman of these remote times appears no trace of the charms and fetiches which usually accompany the performance of domestic duties among primitive races. Nothing lower in the scale of human existence could be imagined than the lives of these women of the river-drift, to whom nature made no appeal save that of fear of its furious moods, to whom sex meant not the possibilities of pure wifehood and motherhood, but servitude to the demands of passion. When children were not vigorous, or when for any reason their nurture became irksome, they were ruthlessly slain, even by the mothers themselves; and every woman knew that the lot of abandonment was reserved for her when she could no longer fulfil the hard conditions of her existence.
In some respects, the life of the women of the cave-dwellers of the later Pleistocene period was of a higher order than that which we have just described—not that there was any essential difference in the social grade of the two peoples, but that the cave-dwellers had learned to make better implements of the chase and to fashion more effectively all their weapons and tools. The greater security to life afforded by these improvements and the greater assurance of subsistence led to more settled living, and thereby afforded an opportunity to develop a social organization that should have for its basis something of greater permanence than a temporary need. While it would be hazardous, then, to assume too much in the way of improvement in the life of the women of the cave-dwellers over that of the women of the river-drift, yet it should be borne in mind that in states of society such as those represented by these remote inhabitants of Britain, even a slight advance in the scale of living marks an epoch of progress.
The cave-dwellers succeeded the people of the river-drift as inhabitants of Britain, and the combined occupancy of the country by these peoples covered a vast stretch of time. It is very probable that their periods overlapped, and that the later people were in part contemporary
The cave-dwellers, like their predecessors, were hunters. For their dwellings they chose the caves from which they had driven out the bear and the lion. These rude homes the women hung about with the skins of the horse or the wolf, and spread on the floor for couches the hides of these or of other beasts that had fallen by the arrows of the hunters or had been ensnared in their pitfalls. Here the tribe remained until the scarcity of game or the assault of enemies impelled it to migrate. Where there were no caves, huts were constructed. These were framed with the branches and trunks of trees and covered with skins and hides.
The woman of the cave-dwellers was a sturdy specimen of her sex, and the long and arduous migrations in which the burden of the work fell upon her shoulders were probably borne with little sense of hardship. We can imagine a tribe, travelling afoot, for as yet neither the horse nor any other animal had been domesticated: the men with their long fish spears across their backs, their stone arrows hanging at their sides, and their bows in hand, always alert for the wild beasts with which they waged a relentless warfare; the women laden with all the paraphernalia of their simple existence, many with a babe slung at the back, and their naked, uncouth progeny following or gambolling about them. The strange personal appearance of both men and women would add to the oddity of the scene in modern eyes, for their bodies were painted in grotesque patterns, and, if the rigors of the season made any covering necessary, a simple skin, laced about them with reindeer sinews, sufficed for clothing. On coming to a fresh hunting region, near to some body of water or flowing stream, where the game would naturally come to slake their thirst,—perhaps upon the grassy plains that still extended over what is now the English Channel and formed a part of the original land connection with the continent,—they paused for another term of settled residence. Again the caves were resorted to, or rudely thatched huts were erected. If the wild beasts pressed the wanderers too hard, they sometimes had recourse to huts erected upon rough stone heaps in the midst of an oozy swamp.
While the men gave themselves wholly to hunting, the women went about their domestic pursuits. To them was assigned the making of such scanty clothing as was imperatively required in the cold season; for though the crude carvings of the time invariably represent the hunters as naked, it cannot be concluded from such evidence that clothing was not worn at all. The extremely serviceable reindeer sinews served the women for thread, and a thin reindeer prong, pierced through at the thick end, made a satisfactory needle. The skins were simply sewed together at the edges, without shaping, but with apertures through which to pass the head and arms. The women devised many ornaments; these consisted of amulets and necklaces made of bone, ivory, and shells, which, shaped and polished, they painstakingly punctured and fastened together in long strings for the decoration of their necks and arms. Apparently, it was not customary to wear foot covering of any kind, as the feet of such skeletons of this period as have been found are so symmetrical as to preclude the probability of constraint during growth. The men may have worn some form of foot covering when engaged in such exposed work as spearing the seal in the winter season; but the women, who remained in shelter during the severities of the winter, did not avail themselves of any such protection. The fact that gloves were worn by men seems to be established by some of the rude etchings of the period, for in them such articles appear to be discernible.
The sanitary condition of the homes of these hunting tribes was of the worst description; the offal and refuse were thrown at the very doors of the cave, there to decay and poison the air. The caves themselves were smoke-begrimed and foul, for house cleaning had not yet entered into the economy of woman. While, by reason of their simple, open-air life, they were a vigorous race, the ills to which the cave-dwellers fell a prey, the injuries they suffered in warfare or from the attacks of wild beasts, or the diseases contracted through unsanitary living, must have been sources of great dread to them, as they were without any medical knowledge of which we have trace. When the women, particularly, became too sick to perform their allotted tasks, they were carried out to die or to become the victims of savage beasts; but this was only one of the inevitable phases of an existence that was replete with tragedies.
From the evidence afforded by the great abundance of arrow heads and spear points surviving from this period, there is no doubt that the cave men were much given to warfare. Aside from the natural pugnacity and ferocity of savage races, which lead them to fight upon very little provocation, there was with the cave-dwellers another source of constant hostility. As has been stated with reference to the river-drift people, the women were not permanently attached to the men. It is just as true that they were not permanently attached to their tribes, for when, through disease or the ravages of wild beasts, the women of any horde became greatly diminished in number, their ranks were recruited by forays upon other tribes. These attacks for the purpose of stealing the women of their enemies were especially provocative of fierce conflicts, as the depletion of its stock of women often seriously crippled a tribe and sometimes even threatened its extinction. Such forcible transfers of ownership must have added greatly to the hardness of the woman's lot, for by such means many mothers were permanently separated from their offspring.
The weight of probability and of evidence seems to leave little room for doubt that the early inhabitants of Britain were cannibals. While there was no scarcity of game as a rule, it is quite likely that these savage peoples, as those of the same grade of culture in all times, when experiencing the delirium of a victory over their enemies, put to death by cruel tortures the unhappy captives that fell into their hands, and then, to complete their triumph, roasted and ate the flesh of the slain. Aside from the deductive probability of the case, human bones dating back to this period have been found along with the remains of weapons and in association with the ashes of camp fires; and in such cases the bones have invariably been broken, in order to extract from them their marrow. The story of the battle, the tortures, and the feast is eloquently suggested by the silent memorials that have been preserved through the lapse of ages. As we picture the far-off scene of human savagery, the figure of woman flits through the lights and shadows of the horrid orgy: for she it was who prepared the gruesome repast; it was in defence of her, perhaps, that the fierce battle was fought; some of her own near of kin, it may be, she has been forced to prepare for the unnatural appetites of her enemies. Possibilities! but read in the light of the times, they become probabilities, and probabilities furnish much of the data of history.
The tragedy of woman's life is again brought before us with startling vividness when we look upon the skull of a woman of this remote race, as it lies in a cave, with a little stone hatchet beside it, where it was ruthlessly cast after the commission of a
There are fuller evidences of the state of domestic resources among the women of the cave-dwellers than with those of the river-drift. The remains show, too, a greater variety and adaptation; for while there is no clear proof of the existence of pottery, yet the cave people appear not to have lacked substitutes for it. Vessels for boiling meats were probably fashioned of small stones cemented together, and they had, also, vessels of hollowed wood. The skulls of animals served well for drinking purposes, besides which receptacles for holding liquids were made from the skins of beasts. Water was heated by placing hot stones in a vessel containing it, by which means the fluid could be raised to any desired temperature. Long flint flakes set in handles answered for knives; when rounded at the edge, the same material made serviceable scrapers. Spoons were constructed from pieces of reindeer antlers, hollowed at the thick end, or if they were intended to be used to scoop out the marrow from bones, the tapered end was hollowed. For their food, the cave-dwellers, though they possessed no domesticated animals, had a wide choice of large and small game, birds, fish, reptiles, and grubs; to these they added edible roots and berries.
This almost indispensable domestic handicraft was not, however, the limit of their achievement in designing. We have seen that woman's thought and some of her activities were applied to the production of merely decorative objects. She had already acquired an appreciative taste for the auxiliary attractions of personal adornment. The art of designing certainly found a place in the occupations of these cave-dwellers, and the most familiar animated objects would be their necessary choice. Hence, we may readily conceive that, in the moments of respite from the chase, the rude artist of this age would make of the cave passages a canvas for his work and thereon delineate the animals whose importance to his existence rendered them the most interesting objects. Nor, for this reason, would his subject fail of appreciative criticism and of educational value.
It is impossible to state the nature or the extent of the social organization among these people, but that there must have been something of the sort there can be no doubt. It seems equally plausible that there could have been no recognition of law in the lives of these passionate savages, excepting as the will of some more than ordinarily forceful warrior was for the time so recognized. An association of this kind admitted of the sloughing of the groups whenever a difference of inclination or of interest suggested such a course. Promiscuity undoubtedly remained the characteristic form of the relation of the sexes, the conditions of life admitting of no more enduring relations.
The culture of the peoples of the river-drift and of the caves signified little in British civilization, as these shadowy tribes passed completely out of view. For a period of time that could be expressed only in the term of vague geological computation, the country remained devoid of inhabitants. Meantime, changes were wrought in Britain's physical features. The land became insular, although the subsidence that gave rise to the English Channel was not yet complete. In an indirect way, the earliest peoples may be said to have passed on the elements of their culture; for, while there was a lapse in the continuity of social development, the Neolithic races that are next met with in Britain became the inheritors of the culture of the ruder hunter stages of society represented by the river-drift and cave peoples.
The social grade of the Neolithic races was a great advance over that of the peoples last considered. Instead of bands of nomadic wanderers, we find a pastoral people whose migrations were doubtless periodical and made only in search of new pastures. Hunting did not form an important part of their lives, for their food was supplied by the flesh of domesticated animals and the cereals that they raised for their own needs and, in the winter season, for those of their stock.
Although caves continued to be used to some extent for dwellings, they were not characteristic of the civilization of the times. Man had become a home builder. The evolution from the cave dwellings is seen in the style of houses that were first constructed. They consisted of pits dug to a depth of seven to ten feet, and about seven feet wide at the base. These pits were roofed over with a sort of thatch, filled in with imperfectly burnt clay. They were built singly and in groups, and were sometimes connected by a system of underground passages. Access was had to these dwellings by a slanting, shaftlike entrance. A pit village was usually stockaded to protect it against the assaults of foes. Outside it were the arable lands and the common pasture lands for the sheep and goats; enclosing these, the forest stretched out in all directions.
Looking down from one of the surrounding hilltops upon such a village, it would have presented to the eye of the observer the appearance of a number of round hillocks but little higher than the ground level. Thin lines of smoke, slowly ascending, would mark the places where the common meals were in course of preparation. As the traveller descended the hillside, his approach would be challenged by gaunt, savage sheep dogs, from whose attacks he would need to defend himself. As he passed out into the clearing, he would be confronted by the men, some of them tilling the soil, others acting as shepherds or swineherds. Perhaps a field of golden wheat would lend its beauty to the scene, Approaching the dwellings, the women would be seen at their several employments; some busy cutting up the meat and swinging it over the fires to roast, or boiling it in pots with herbs and roots to make a savory stew, others mixing dough and spreading it upon flat stones over hot embers to bake. Sitting about on the rocks or squatting upon skins spread upon the ground, other women would be found busily making pottery, modelling the clay with their hands, and scratching upon it lines, circles, and pyramids in various combinations, or fashioning designs by pressing reindeer sinews into the substance. Still others would be discovered busily spinning and weaving flax and wool into fabrics for the clothing that marked one of the advances of the Neolithic people. In the distance would be heard the dull strokes of the stone axes with which, in the depth of the wood, the men felled the tall timber.
For the industries presented in this picture of a Neolithic village, there were suitable implements. For all domestic purposes, the art of pottery making had solved the question of satisfactory vessels. These were generally in two colors, either brown or black. The potter's wheel had not yet been invented, so that the vessels lacked the grace and uniformity of later work of the sort. Wheat was ground by means of a mortar and pestle. Knives for various uses, saws, and scrapers were all made of highly polished and very keen-edged flint flakes. The great superiority of their stone implements over those of earlier races has given a name to the people, but the culture of the Polished Stone Age reveals, as its most salient fact, not this, but rather the domestication of animals and the tilling of the soil. It is significant to note that these most characteristic features of the Polished Stone Age denote the advance of society in the arts of peaceful living. War was prevalent enough, but human development had discovered another line of
In such a society as we have described, there is a community of interest that tends to give stability to the ties of relationship. The fairly settled state of life was undoubtedly accompanied by a social organization of some sort that could properly deal with the matters of individual rights. The family had become evolved from the horde; promiscuity had doubtless given place to polygamy, or, under the exceptional conditions of a greater number of men than of women, to polyandry. Neither of these forms of marriage carried with it the idea of fixity and of family responsibility.
A feature of the Neolithic age was its commerce. By a system of intertribal traffic, the simple commodities of the widely dispersed peoples of Europe became distributed among the various tribes. By this means, many articles not of domestic manufacture were added to the comfort of the people of Britain. Thus, the women were enabled to adorn themselves with jade beads that must have come from the region of the Mediterranean Sea, and even with gold ornaments from as distant points. These instances, however, were exceptional, and are to be accounted for in the same manner that we account for the most unlikely things in the possession of the tribes of Central Africa—by gradual hand-to-hand passage.
There was probably an absence of religious ideas among the predecessors of the Polished Stone races; but among the remains of the latter are ample proofs of the prevalence among them of such notions. Caves that once had served them as residences were later used for places of burial, the bodies being piled up with earth until the cavities were completely filled. Accompanying human remains have been found urns, supposedly for burning incense, personal ornaments, implements, and weapons, placed there for the use of the dead. If the people possessed religious conceptions that led them to believe in an after life, there is no room for doubt that religion had a place in the economy of their living. The women of this time, then, could look forward to something better than abandonment to starvation after they became enfeebled by age or sickness, and they may not have lacked religious associations in their everyday life to give to it deeper meaning and interest.
From the foregoing sketch of her life, it is very clear that the condition of Neolithic woman, the range of her ideas, and the elements of her comfort, were much in advance of those of the woman of the Paleolithic period. The contributions to her existence were indeed elements of civilization, and formed the basis for all that the life of the sex has come to be. In the realm of institutions, the home was beginning to have a place and a meaning in the life of the people. Religion, also, had come to widen the horizon of life. Very crude, but real, elements of social progress were all these.
The succeeding age—the Bronze—has been credited with working as great a revolution in life and giving it as great an impetus as did the invention of gunpowder in the Middle Ages. It is certainly a fact that the invention of this beautiful alloy was looked upon by the ancients who lived close to its age as of incalculable importance in its influence upon civilization—a judgment that is confirmed by anyone who studies its abundant remains. Manufactures and commerce were important interests of the times: smelting furnaces and the smith's shop turned out beautiful specimens of wares of all sort—shields, spears, arrow tips, cups of graceful pattern, vessels for all purposes, ornaments, and the trimmings for the large boats made necessary by a wide commerce, were all manufactured beyond the needs of domestic consumption. The stimulated inventiveness of the people added many new articles of comfort to their lives.
The development of bronze was not original with the people of Britain, but was introduced through an invasion of bronze-using people. For this reason, the change made in the life of the people was radical, instead of being, as on the continent, a gradual process. The struggle that ensued between the bronze users and the stone users was a contest between an advanced civilization and one of a lower order; and its issue was predetermined. The newcomers became the controlling element in the country. The tendency of the new order of things was toward individualism. Personal ownership brought with it social grades, so that it is impossible to make statements with regard to the bronze people that apply equally to all the race.
But we are concerned with the conditions of the times only as the setting in which we are to study the life of woman. In the Bronze Age, there was introduced into her life nothing to be compared to the contributions made thereto in the preceding age. While her horizon was greatly broadened, and while she benefited by the improvements in living,—better facilities, comforts, and even luxuries,—yet the advance was along established lines. We may surely believe that closer intercourse with outside peoples brought a corresponding quickening of thought and an appreciation of the merits of grades of life higher than her own. There was no marked change in the style of dwellings of the people of the Bronze Age from those of the Neolithic period; but their furnishings were better, and, instead of the skins of wild animals, those of domestic animals and, perhaps, woven and brightly dyed fabrics now served for couches, and were hung about the walls as a protection against dampness. The utensils of the home were varied and ornamental, the conventional patterns having given place to other, though still simple, designs. In the homes of the wealthy, knives and spoons and the finer grades of vessels were of bronze.
The dress of the women had now become something more than mere protection for the body. The skins of animals might still suffice for the clothing of the poor, but the rich man's attire consisted of well-bleached linens, and, doubtless, woollen fabrics as well. The garments made of these materials were probably dyed in rich colors, as the principles of dyeing were well understood. We can picture, then, a woman of the higher grade, dressed in a tunic, with a mantle of contrasting color, her hair done up in an elaborate coiffure and set off by a cap of goat or sheep skin. Projecting from under this would appear bronze hairpins, perhaps twenty inches in length, of ornamental design; indeed, her coiffure was such an elaborate affair that it is quite likely that she slept with it in a head rest, similar to those which we know were used by the lake-dwellers of Switzerland and are still used in Japan. Pendent from her neck hung strings of beads and ornaments made of bone, polished stone, bronze, and even glass and gold. Her arms were weighted with bracelets, and her legs were adorned with anklets.
Spinning, weaving, the milking of the goats, the making of curd and cheese, the modelling of pottery, the preparation of the meals, assisting with the outdoor work, and the care of her children, made up the round of woman's life in those days. But there was another element that had come to be a serious one in her existence, and that was religion. Although the form of the prevailing religious belief is lost, yet we have evidence that it was elaborate enough to call for special places for its observance. Indeed, none of the remains of the Bronze Age are more instructive, or present food for more fruitful speculation as to the manner of life or the scope of mentality during that era, than the
Chapter II
The Women of Ancient Britain
For our survey of the women of the different and, to a considerable degree, distinct peoples of Britain, prior to their being brought under the influence of Roman culture, it will be convenient to take our stand at the beginning of the period of real history, which for Britain may be conveniently placed at the first century before Christ. A survey of woman at that time would, in the nature of the case, partake somewhat of the character of a composite picture. Still, it would include all important particulars, even though these might not, in all cases, be accurately assigned in point of time, or even precisely as to race. So gradual were the changes that were wrought in woman's existence during the revolution that followed the introduction of iron into the arts of Britain's life, that it will not be difficult to speak with approximate accuracy.
The data for our picture of the status and occupations of the women at the time under consideration will need to be drawn from archæological remains of different dates and of widely different races, as well as from the confused and often conflicting or even incredible accounts of early voyagers, to which may be added the vague allusions of legendary lore.
In considering the details of the life of woman during the period under consideration, the most salient fact is not the influx and partial merging of different peoples resulting from the intercourse that had been opened up between the Britons and the nations of the continent; nor is it the impulse to civilization brought about by the use of iron in the manufacture of a multitude of articles of general convenience. Such influences and agencies were potent in society, working the transformation that found its expression, among other ways, in the lifting of woman to the plane of civilization that was introduced by the Romans; but, undoubtedly, the greatest contributing factor to the life of the age, and so the most important one in fixing the status of woman, was the trade relations that were developed with Britain by the peoples of the South and the remote East: the Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Etruscans, the Greeks, and, later, the Romans. To the Phoenicians, that nation of traders, must be given the credit of the introduction into Britain of the higher products of many of those peoples whose civilizations were of an advanced type. It was the fleets of this enterprising people that brought into Britain quantities of finely wrought implements of various sorts: useful articles that greatly increased the comfort of life, as well as those of ornament and of dress. Among such imports were the jade beads and ornaments which the British women held in especial esteem; beads of glass, delicately marked and colored; ornaments of gold, sometimes inlaid with enamel in pleasing designs and colors; fine fabrics of different sorts; rings, brooches, necklaces, armlets, leg bands, and wares of many kinds. Such things not only added to the comfort and the sense of luxury of the women, but, as object lessons of art and elegance, they were in the highest degree educative. They stimulated woman's imagination and piqued her interest in regard to the women of those far distant lands, with whom such articles were in ordinary use. We hear of travellers' tales, carried back by the early voyagers to Britain, which, by their incredible coloring, awakened the wonder of the Greeks; but probably as much amazement and interest were aroused among the Britons by the marvellous tales, told by the Phœnicians and other traders, concerning the nations among which were manufactured the articles brought by them to barter for the metals, furs, woods, and other products of Britain. In this way, a distorted knowledge of the outside world and of the accomplishments of highly civilized peoples came to be widely diffused among the more advanced of the rude inhabitants of Britain. The arrival of a ship in port was an event of absorbing interest; soon the women of the coast settlements would be seen busily traversing the narrow, winding paths by which the houses of a village were connected, to gossip with their neighbors about the latest bit of wonderful narrative picked up from the oddly garbed foreign sailors concerning the mighty nations of the remote parts of the earth, or to display some purchase—a piece of cloth of fine web or of bright colors, a chased fibula, a string of beads, or articles of like nature. It would be difficult to exaggerate the effect upon the mentality and the life interest of the simple-minded yet keenly inquiring British women of the commerce which, at first occasional, gradually became regular and expanding, and by which Britain was brought out of its insular separateness into the broad current of the world's progress.
The population of Britain was large—as the Romans found when they came into the country. The people were collected into villages and towns which were ruled by chieftains who were frequently at war with one another. During such strife their women were hidden in caves or pits covered with brush; this was a necessary protective measure for the loss of its women was the severest blow a people could suffer. This division of the tribes into little warring factions was the cause of the country falling readily a prey to the Romans.
When we consider that the writers of the time had in view different elements of the population, it is less difficult to harmonize their conflicting statements. While there are contrary statements made as to the agriculture of the Romans, it seems to be a satisfactory reconciliation of these statements to regard the less progressive northern tribes as purely pastoral and the inhabitants of the other parts of the island as agriculturalists as well as herdsmen. After the Romans became established, wheat came to be one of the chief articles of export. The producers harvested this grain by cutting off the heads and storing them in pits under the ground. These pits were protected against frost. Each day the farmers took out the wheat longest stored, and ground it into meal. The process of removing the grain from the cob was, according to what we know of it, similar to the method still in use down to the seventeenth century in some parts of Britain. This consisted of twirling in the fire several heads of wheat, which the woman performing the operation held in her left hand, while with a stick held in her right hand she beat off the loosened grain at the very instant that the chaff was consumed. The grain was then usually ground in a hand mill, although there is reason to believe that water mills also were used to some extent. The meal was then mixed, and baked over the fire in little loaves, or flat cakes. The whole process occupied but a couple of hours.
The houses of the people, to which the women were confined the greater part of the winter, were mean little structures. They were circular in shape, and were made of wattles or wood, and sometimes of stone. These wigwam-like structures were roofed with straw, and had as their
The dress of the women differed according to the wealth and the civilization of the various sections of the population. The tribes of the east and southeast, who were principally Celts, were the more civilized, while the Caledonians of the north—the Picts, or painted men, as they were commonly called—were far less advanced. The women of the Celts were of great personal attractiveness. They possessed a wealth of magnificent hair, were fair-complexioned and of splendid physique. To these graces of person they added fierce tempers; we are told that when the husband of one of them engaged in an altercation with a stranger, his wife would join strenuously in the controversy, and with her powerful "snow-white" arms, and her feet as well, deliver blows "with the force of a catapult." These vigorous British women were vain of their appearance and gay in their dress. Their costume consisted of a sleeved blouse, which was ordinarily confined at the waist; this garment partly covered trousers, worn long and clasped at the ankles. A plaid of bright colors was fastened at the shoulders with a brooch. They wore nothing on their heads, but displayed their hair fastened in a graceful knot at the neck.
They wove thin stuffs for summer wear, and felted heavy druggets for winter; the latter were said to be prepared with vinegar, and "were so tough that they would turn the stroke of a sword." Some of their clothes are described as "woven of gaudy colors and making a show." They were versed in the art of using alternate colors in the warp and woof so as to bring out the pattern of stripes and squares. Diodorus says of some of their patterns that the cloth was covered with an infinite number of little squares and lines, "as if it had been sprinkled with flowers," or was striped with cross bars, giving a checkered effect. The colors most in vogue were red and crimson; "such honest colors," says the Roman writer, "as a person had no cause to blame, nor the world a reason to cry out upon." Such were the fabrics with which the more civilized of the British women arrayed themselves, and the workmanship of which speaks volumes for their makers' industry and skill. The women were inordinately fond of ornaments, and had a plentiful supply from which to select. Their attire was not complete unless it included necklaces, bracelets, strings of bright beads,—made of glass or a substance resembling Egyptian porcelain,—and that which was regarded as the crowning ornament of every woman of wealth—a torque of gold, or else a collar of the same metal. A ring was at first worn on the middle finger, but later it alone was left bare, all the other fingers being loaded with rings.
Among the more primitive of the peoples of Britain, skins continued to be worn, if, as among the Picts, clothing were not dispensed with altogether. The women of these fierce tribes were too proud of the intricate devices in brilliant colors with which their bodies were tattooed to hide them in any way. These, so Professor Elton is inclined to think, were the people who introduced bronze into Britain. They made continual and fierce attacks on their Celtic neighbors and carried off their women into captivity. And it was because of these attacks that the Anglo-Saxons were invited into Britain to champion the cause of the people, after the departure of the Romans had left the Britons to their own resources.
A period of peculiar interest and uncertainty was that of the Roman occupancy of the country, with its veneer of civilization and the introduction of Christianity, all of which was apparently swept aside by the conquering hordes of Teutons who came into Briton and laid the foundations for the English nation. It was a time of great changes in the standards of life and tastes, as well as of the morals of the British women. With the Romans came their inevitable arts of conciliation after conquest. Then followed the period of generous grants of public works—the baths, the theatres, the arena; then the Roman villa superseded the huts of the inhabitants. All was created under the ægis of the great mistress of the nations, and included strong fortifications. Civilization was advanced, but manliness was degraded. Effeminacy reduced the sturdy morals of the Briton to the plane of those of their conquerors. The abominable usage of the women finds expression in the bitter cry that the poet ascribes to the noble British queen, Boadicea: "Me they seized and they tortured, me they lashed and humiliated, me the sport of ribald veterans, mine of ruffian violators."
It is not a part of our work to even sketch the course of the Roman invasion in its path of blood and fire across the face of Britain, or the stubborn and sturdy opposition of the natives, the subjugation and the revolt of tribes—notably the Icenii, who cost the Romans seventy thousand slain and the destruction of three cities, but whose final conquest broke the backbone of opposition to the Roman arms. All this is political history, and cannot concern us excepting in the immense effect it had upon the women of the land. It was they who bore the brunt of suffering, degradation, and, too frequently, slavery and deportation—customary incidents of the fierce spirit of the Roman conquests. But in spite of the miseries their coming entailed upon the people, the Roman rule had an admirable effect upon the country in promoting peace, in establishing regard for law, and in stimulating commerce. After they had become accustomed to the Roman method of legal procedure in the settlement of differences, the Britons were no longer ready to fly at one another's throat on the least provocation. The breaking up of their tribal distinctions led to a greater consolidation of the people and removed a cause of strife. But as the descendants of the defenders of Britain's liberties grew up amid Roman conditions of life that had permeated the whole population as far as the northern highlands, where the people proved invincible to the Roman arms, the habit of dependence upon the Roman legions for protection enervated the people to such an extent that they could interpose but faint resistance to the next invaders of the country—the conquering Angles, Jutes, and Saxons.
It is amid conditions of Roman conquest and control that we are now to consider more in detail the status of the British woman. Scattered along the borders of the woods, between the pasture lands and the hunting lands, could be found the homesteads of the Britons, before the rise of the Roman city. Each of these edifices was large enough to hold the entire family in its single room. They were built, generally, of hewn logs, set in a row on end and covered with rushes or turf. The family fire burned in the middle of the room, and, circling it, sat the members of the household at their meals. The same raised seat of rushes served them at night for a couch. Under the prevailing tribal custom, three families, or rather three generations of the same family, from grandfather to grandson, occupied each dwelling. After the third generation the family was broken up, though all the members of it retained the memory of their common descent. It is not clear whether or not a strictly monogamous
Little is known as to the laws of the Britons in regard to the regulation of family. In the matter of divorce, if the couple had several children, the husband took the eldest and the youngest, and the wife the middle ones, although the merits of such a peculiar division do not appear. It would seem as if in the case of the youngest child, at least, the mother was the proper custodian, or at any rate the natural one. The pigs went to the man, and the sheep to the woman; the wife took the milk vessels, and the man the mead-brewing machinery. This was at variance with the later custom of England, for well on through the Middle Ages, both as a family employment and a public industry, brewing was accounted woman's occupation. To the husband went also the table and ware. He took the larger sieve, she the smaller; he the upper, and she the lower millstone of the corn mill. The under bedding was his, and the upper hers. He received the unground corn, she the meal. The ducks, the geese, and the cats were her portion, while to his share fell the hens and one mouser.
The slight estimation in which women were held as compared with the value put upon men is indicated by the fact that a woman was legally rated at half the worth of her brother and one-third that of her husband. If a woman engaged in a quarrel, she was fined a specific sum for each finger with which she fought and for each hair she pulled from her adversary's head.
Among the customs in which women were concerned, those relating to marriage show that the assumption of family responsibility was regarded as a permanent relation, and their nature does not agree with Cæsar's description of the loose ties of matrimony among the Britons. It is entirely unlikely that the wives of the men were held by them in common. As has been already stated, such group marriages, if they existed, were localized among the rudest of the races of the country, whose general civilization had not elevated them to the point of appreciation of pure family life. Such, perhaps, were the small dark races descended from the Neolithic tribes and held in little esteem by the Celts. Among the Celts it was customary for the father of a bride to make a present of his own arms to his son-in-law. As will be seen later by a description of one of their dinners, the Celts preferred feasting to all other occupations, and their festivities were accompanied by the utmost conviviality. A wedding was an occasion for the most extravagant feasting, all the relatives of the contracting parties, to the third degree of kindred, assembling to eat and drink to the happiness of the newly wedded pair. The ceremony took place at the house of the bridegroom, and the bride was conducted thither by her friends. If the parties were rich, the pair made presents to their friends at the marriage festival; but if they were poor, the reverse was the case, and presents were made to them by the guests. At the conclusion of the feast, the bride and bridegroom were conducted to their chamber by the whole company, with great merriment and amid music and dancing. The next morning, before rising, it was the rule for the husband to make his wife a present of considerable value, according to his circumstances. This was regarded as the wife's peculiar property.
The wives of the ancient Britons had not only the usual domestic duties to perform, but much of the outside work as well. Being of robust constitution, leading lives of simplicity and naturalness, maternity interfered but little with the round of their duties. The period was not wholly without its anxieties, however, as is shown by the custom among British women of wearing a girdle that was supposed to be conducive to the birth of heroes. The assumption of these girdles was a ceremony accompanied with mystical rites, and was a part of the Druidical ritual. The newborn babe was plunged into some lake or river in order to harden it, and as a test of its constitution; this was done even in the winter season. The early British mother always nursed her children herself, nor would she have thought of delegating this duty to another. The first morsel of food put into a male infant's mouth was on the tip of the father's sword, that the child might grow up to be a great warrior. As is frequently the case with primitive peoples, the Britons did not give names to their children until the latter had performed some feat or displayed some characteristic which might suggest for them a suitable name. It follows from this that all the names of the ancient Britons that have been preserved to us are significant. The youth were not delicately nurtured, and after passing through the perils of childhood, when the care of a mother was imperative, it is probable that the mother had little to do with the training of her boy. Accustomed almost from infancy to the use of arms, as he grew older the boy added to his training athletic ordeals and feats of daring. Among the games to which he was accustomed was jumping through swords so placed that it was extremely difficult to leap quickly through them without being impaled. Youth was democratic, and, without any distinction, the children of the noble and the lowly, equally sordid and ill clad, played about on the floor or in the open field.
The Britons were noted for the warmth of their family affection. The mother was sure of the dutiful regard of her children and did not lack affectionate consideration from her husband. The aged were treated with a reverence in striking contrast to the heartlessness with which in earlier times the old were deserted to die or were put to death—a custom not unusual among primitive peoples. It is pleasant to think of the British matron inculcating into the minds of her children respect for age and the claims of relationship.
The law of hospitality was sacred to the ancient Briton. When a stranger sought entertainment at the home of one of them, no questions were asked as to his identity or his business, until after the meal. Indeed, it was frequently the case that such arrivals were made the excuse for a great feast, to which a number of friends were invited. The women soon had the preparation under way, and in due time the meat was roasting at the spit and the pot swinging on the crane over a roaring fire. While the mothers were employed in these occupations and in making bread, their daughters poured the fresh milk into the pitchers and filled the metal beakers and earthen jugs with home-brewed beer and mead. While the men exchanged stories of their hunting exploits and deeds of valor in battle, the women carried on a constant buzz of suppressed speculation and remark concerning the guests. When the meal was ready, the women set it before the men upon fresh grass or rushes. The bread was served in wicker baskets. The guests and their hosts seated themselves upon a carpet of rushes, or upon dog or wolf skins placed near the open fireplace. While the men voraciously seized the steaming joints and carved from them long slices of meat, which they ate "after the fashion of lions," the women plied them with the beakers of foaming beverage, and the bards sang, to the music of harps, the boastful exploits of some local chieftain. It was a strange thing if the feast and conviviality did not end in a fight over some question of precedence or disputed statement. When such a combat did
One of the favorite domestic employments of the British women, though one which we may imagine fell largely to the lot of the younger women and the girls, was the making of the wickerware for which the ancient Britons were famous. Baskets, platters, the bodies of chariots, the frames of boats, and even the framework of the houses, were made of this light and serviceable material. Withes peeled and woven by the supple fingers of the young British women into fancy baskets found a ready market at Rome, and commanded high prices, being generally esteemed as a rare work of ingenious art. During the hours required to weave an article of this sort, the women would fall into a responsive song, picked up perhaps from some passing minstrel.
Weaving, spinning, dyeing the fabrics thus made; the milking of the cattle, the grinding of the meal; the making of the garments for the family; the manufacture of pottery, to which may be added a share of the outdoor work, were some of the matters which made the life of the British woman far from an idle one. And yet, with it all, the young women found leisure to tarry at the spring for the exchange of laughing remarks, as they dropped something into its clear depth—as an offering to the divinity who they fully believed resided therein and who held in keeping their future and their fortunes—before they drew from it the water for the bleaching of the linen that they had already spread out in the sun.
The religion of the Britons, before the introduction of Christianity, was an elaborate system of superstitions and of nature worship. It was in the hands of a priestly order—the Druids. A mother was glad to resign her boy to the training of this mystical brotherhood, if he showed sufficient talent to warrant his reception therein. It is not necessary to describe particularly the system. It was made up of three orders, the Druids proper, the Bards, and the Ovates. Over the whole order was an Archdruid, who was elected for life. An order of Druidesses, also, is supposed to have existed. When Suetonius Paulinus landed at Anglesey in pursuit of the Druids (A.D. 56), women with hair streaming down their backs, dressed in black robes and with flaring torches in their hands, rushed up and down the heights, invoking curses on the invaders of their sacred precincts, greatly to the terror of the superstitious Roman soldiery.
At some of their sacred rites the women appeared naked, with their skin dyed a dark hue with vegetable stain. It was the custom of the Druids, who had the oversight of public morals, to offer, as sacrifices to the gods, thieves, murderers, and other criminals, whom they condemned to be burned alive. Wickerwork receptacles, sometimes made in the form of images, were filled with the miserable wretches, and were then placed upon the pyre and consumed. The prophetic women, standing by, made divinations from the sinews, the flowing blood, or the quivering flesh of the victims. The defeat of the Druids and the felling of their sacred groves by the Romans gave the death blow to the system, which under the influence of Christianity completely disappeared.
The diffusion of Roman civilization colored the beliefs of the British women. The destruction of the native shrines whither they used to resort to make a propitiatory offering or to draw divinations for direction in some matter of personal or domestic concern, and the establishment of the fanes of Rome, which abounded throughout the country to the limits of the Roman conquest, converted the local deities into Roman divinities. Under new names, the old gods of the woods and streams continued to receive the homage of the Romanized British matrons and maidens.
But with the introduction of Christianity and its extension even into parts of the country where the sword of Rome had failed to penetrate, there was a more radical change wrought in the life of women. They have always instinctively recognized the fact that the Christian religion is their champion, and in its consolation the women of the Britons found much to alleviate their common distress and to elevate their status. In the trying hours that came with the inroads of the fierce and barbarous Teutons, when they were carried off by the savage Picts to a base servitude, and when, after the reassertion of the Christian religion among the English, the coming of the Danes next brought a fresh abasement for their sex, the Christian faith was the sustaining and the reconstructive force of the lives of the women of the country. With the advance of Christianity passed the customs of pagan burial. The dead were no longer cremated, nor were they buried in the tumuli with the objects of their customary association interred with them to be of service in the spirit world.
One of the most apparent results of the Roman conquest, in its relation to the domestic life of the people, was the supersedence of the rude British dwellings by the Roman villa. This open style of house, suited to the sunny skies of Italy, had to undergo modifications to adapt it to the more rigorous clime of Britain. About an open court, which was either paved or planted in flower beds, the rooms were arranged, all of them opening inwardly, and some of them having an entrance to the outside as well. These connected rooms were usually one story high, with perhaps an additional story in the rear. The windows were iron-barred. The front of the villa was adorned with stucco and gaudily painted. In the homes of the wealthy, the inner court became an elaborately pillared banquet hall, with tessellated work in fine marble and with the pavement figured in symbolical devices. In it were placed the family shrines and statuary. Or else it was fitted up with the baths which were such a feature of Roman life. In later times, the walls blossomed out into decorations of mythological subjects: the foam-born Aphrodite, Bacchus and his panther steeds, Orpheus holding his dumb audience enthralled by his melody, Narcissus at the fountain, or the loves of Cupid and Psyche.
The heating arrangements of these houses were ample and convenient, and the edifices themselves were frequently added to by succeeding generations. In the country districts, the houses were provided with large storerooms, plentifully supplied with provisions, and were garrisoned against the attack of enemies. The best of these Roman-British houses were imposing structures of vast dimensions. The women, when surrounded by the luxuries of Roman life, gave themselves over to pleasure and frequented the theatres and the public baths, and entertained in lavish style. They generally adopted the graceful Roman dress, and thus cleared themselves of the charge of loudness, extravagance, and meanness of attire that the earlier Roman writers brought against them. After the introduction of Christianity, when Roman civilization had become completely domesticated, it was no unusual thing for a Roman to have a British wife, or for British matrons to be found on the streets of Rome itself. The morals of the people were not proof against the contamination of Roman standards. The women, who were brought into closest touch with the Roman populace, imbibed their views and followed their example. Yet among the people who lived the simpler life of the country districts, and to whom Christianity most forcibly appealed, the standards of their race were largely maintained. The manner of life of the women of the wild northern tribes was, as we have seen, unaffected by the Roman occupancy of