positions in great households.

Many master freemasons, who carved freestone or finely grained
sandstone and limestone artistically with mallet and chisel, left
the country for better wages after their wages were fixed by
statute. The curvilinear gothic style of architecture was replaced
by the perpendicular style, which was simpler and cheaper to
build. Church steeples now had clocks on them with dials and hands
to supplement the church bell ringing on the hour. Alabaster was
often used for sepulchral monuments instead of metal or stone.
With it, closer portraiture could be achieved.

In the 1300s and 1400s the London population suffered from
tuberculosis, typhus, influenza, leprosy, dysentery, smallpox,
diphtheria, measles, heart disease, fevers, coughs, cramps,
catarrhs and cataracts, scabs, boils, tumors, and "burning agues".
There were also many deaths by fires, burning by candles near
straw beds when drunk, falling downstairs when drunk, and drowning
in the river or wells. Children were often crushed by carts,
trampled by horses, or mauled by pigs. Towns recognized surgery as
a livelihood subject to admission and oath to serve the social
good. Master surgeons were admitted to practice in 1369 in London
in full husting before the mayor and the aldermen and swore to:
faithfully serve the people in undertaking their cures, take
reasonably from them, faithfully follow their calling, present to
the said mayor and aldermen the defaults of others undertaking, so
often as should be necessary; to be ready, at all times when they
should be warned, to attend the maimed or wounded and others, to
give truthful information to the officers of the city as to such
maimed, wounded, or others whether they be in peril of death or
not, and to faithfully do all other things touching their calling.

Some young girls of good families were boarded at nunneries to be
taught there. Some upper class widows retired there. Only women
were allowed to be present at a birth, at which they spread the
knowledge of midwifery. As usual, many women died giving birth.
Various ways to prevent pregnancy were tried. It was believed that
a baby grew from a seed of the father planted in the woman's body.

Infant mortality was especially high in boroughs and burgess
family lines usually died out. A three-generation family span was
exceptional in the towns, despite family wealth.

Children's sweets included gingerbread and peppermint drops. After
the