Petronilla, Countess of Leicester, granted to Petronilla, daughter of Richard Roger’s son of Leicester and her heirs “all the suit of the men outside the Southgate aforesaid to bake at her bakehouse with all the liberties and free customs, saving my customary tenants who are bound to my bakehouses within the town of Leicester,” Bateson, (M.) _Records, Leicester_, Vol. I.; p. 10. It might be supposed that industries such as brewing and baking, which were so closely connected with the domestic arts pertaining to women, would be more extensively occupied by women than trades such as those of blacksmith or pewterer or butcher; but it will be shown that skill acquired domestically was not sufficient to establish a woman’s position in the world of trade, and that actually in the seventeenth century it was as difficult for her to become a baker as a butcher. _Baking._—After the decay of feudal privileges the trade of baking was controlled on lines similar to those governing other trades, but subject to an even closer supervision by the local authorities, owing to the fact that bread is a prime necessity of life. On this account its price was fixed by “the assize of bread.” The position of women in regard to the trade was also somewhat different, because while in other trades they possessed fewer facilities than men for acquiring technical experience, in this they learnt the art of baking as part of their domestic duties. Nevertheless, in the returns which give the names of authorised bakers, those of women do not greatly exceed in number the names which are given for other trades; of lists for the City of Chester, one gives thirty names of bakers, six being women, all widows, while another gives thirty-nine men and no women,[461] and a third twenty-six men and three women. The assistance which the Baker’s wife gave to her husband, however, was taken for granted. At Carlisle, the bye-laws provide that “noe Persons ... shall brew or bayk to sell but only freemen and thare wifes.”[462] And a rule at Beverley laid down that “no common baker or other baker called boule baker, their wives, servants, or apprentices, shall enter the cornmarket any Saturday for the future before 1 p.m. to buy any grain, nor buy wheat coming on Saturdays to market beyond 2 bushels for stock for their own house after the hour aforesaid.”[463] Footnote 461: _Harl. MSS._, 2054, fo. 44 and 45, 2105, fo. 301. Footnote 462: Ferguson, _Carlisle, Dormont Book_, p. 69, 1561. Footnote 463: _Beverley Town Documents_, pp. 39-40.