ufactured the linen for the ladies of the hall; from hemp
they made the coarse sackcloth for their underclothing, and they spun
and wove the wool shorn from the backs of their few sheep for their
outer clothing. The women of this class frequently could not afford an
oven of their own, and so the flour which was made from the grain that
was required to be ground at the lord's mill was also baked in his
oven. The simple medicines were brewed by the housewife from the herbs
which grew by the copse side or on the commons or in the ditches. When
the manufacture of wool and flax was withdrawn to the towns, the labor
of the women was to that extent lightened, although their income was
correspondingly lessened.

The condition of the very poor was pitiful in the extreme; as there
had been no opportunity for the laying up of provision for old age,
the only recourse for the women and men alike, when indigency and age
overtook them, was to seek shelter in the almshouses which had been
founded for the decrepit and the destitute. Many yielded to their
"miserable cares and troubles," and died from starvation. By the
fifteenth century the monasteries had ceased to be important centres
for the dispensing of charity, so that relief from destitution could
not be looked for from that source. The conventual orders, in common
with the rest of the nation, had become burdened with debt through the
wars at home and abroad. The numerous regulations for the control of
beggars, and the licenses which were issued to regulate the practice,
show the great prevalence of real poverty and want during the whole of
the fifteenth century, although throughout the Middle Ages mendicancy
was familiar enough.

Such was the condition of the women of the industrial classes during
the Middle Ages. The period that witnessed the transition from the
Middle Ages into modern times, the breakup of feudalism, and the
construction of society upon a different basis, was, as transitional
periods are apt to be, one of peculiar stress. And as this period in
England was marked by severe wars, with all the blight and desolation
which they bring to a land, it was one of especial severity upon those
who had to bear the burden of such undertakings. Not only was the
standard of living brought low, and the comforts of life reduced to
the bare necessities, but manners were as disastrously affected as
was the economy of the realm. Crime and violence stalked through the
country, see