Our Legal Heritage: King AEthelbert - King George III, 600 A.D. - 1776Reilly, S. A.
History
Our Legal Heritage: King AEthelbert - King George III, 600 A.D. - 1776
Reilly, S. A.
Law -- England -- History
Since one loom could provide work for about six spinners, the
weaver had his wool spun by other spinners in their cottages. Sometimes
the master weaver had an apprentice or workman working and living with
him, who had free board and lodging and an annual wage. Then a fuller
made the cloth thick and dense by washing, soaping, beating, and
agitating it, with the use of a community watermill which could be used
by anyone for a fixed payment. The cloth dried through the night on a
rack outside the cottage. The weaver then took his cloth, usually only
one piece, to the weekly market to sell. The weavers stood at the
market holding up their cloth. The cloth merchant who bought the cloth
then had it dyed or dressed according to his requirements. Its surface
could be raised with teazleheads and cropped or sheared to make a nap.
Some cloth was sold to tailors to make into clothes. Often a weaver had
a horse for travel, a cow for milk, chickens for eggs, perhaps a few
cattle, and some grazing land. Butchers bought, slaughtered, and cut up
animals to sell as meat. Some was sold to cooks, who sold prepared
foods. The hide was bought by the tanner to make into leather. The
leather was sold to shoemakers and glovemakers. Millers bought
harvested grain to make into flour. Flour was sold to bakers to make
into breads. Wood was bought by carpenters and by coopers, who made
barrels, buckets, tubs, and pails. Tilers, oilmakers and rope makers
also bought raw material to make into finished goods for sale.
Wheelwrights made ploughs, harrows, carts, and later wagons. Smiths and
locksmiths worked over their hot fires.
Games with dice were sometimes played. In winter, youths ice-
skated with bones fastened to their shoes. They propelled themselves by
striking the ice with staves shod with iron. On summer holydays, they
exercised in leaping, shooting with the bow, wrestling, throwing
stones, and darting a thrown spear. The maidens danced with timbrels.
Since at least 1133, children's toys included dolls, drums, hobby
horses, pop guns, trumpets, and kites.
The cold, indoors as well as outdoors, necessitated that people
wear ample and warm garments. Men and women of position dressed in long
full cloaks reaching to their feet, sometimes having short full
sleeves. The cloak generally had a hood and was fastened at the neck
with a brooch. Underneath the cloak was a simple gown with sleeves
tight at the wrist but full at the armhole, as if cut from the same
piece of cloth. A girdle or belt was worn at the waist. When the men
were hunting or working, they wore gown and cloak of knee length. Men
wore stockings to the knee and shoes. The fashion of long hair on men
returned.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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