Working Women All Through History: Blacksmiths, Silversmiths, Nail Makers

If you thought that "Kate the Blacksmith" was an anachronism in A Knight's Tale... she wasn't. (Well except for her dialect... and maybe her attitude...)  Despite the feminist mythology, women have engaged, openly and profitably, in almost every occupation in every era in the western, Christian world.

In the 14th Century Holkham Bible, this illustration shows a woman blacksmith forging a nail. Note the assumption in the caption, written by a modern author, that she is "the Blacksmith's wife".  Maybe she was and maybe she wasn't... what the factual record shows is a woman working at a forge with hammer and tongs.

In the brief article "Blacksmithing of the 18th Century", the author notes that the demand for nails was huge, and making them was a common sideline for people, including women - even those women who were not full-fledged master smiths.

The Bodleian Library blog has an interesting article about "Lizzie Bennett, Blacksmith":

" An account of blacksmithing work done in December 1708 by Eliz[abeth] Bennett at Blenheim ‘Castle’, her job included making 32 dozen holdfasts for the joiners (at 2 shillings a dozen), making new handles for three saws, mending a pump in the meadows, and making wedges and clouts (patches or plates) used in the stairs. But in addition to making items for a fixed price, she also charged for work by the pound weight. Twenty five pounds of iron works for a grindstone at 4 pence a pound earned her 8s 4d (100 pence total) and 31 pounds of wedges and clouts, also at 4 pence a pound, made her 10s 4d.The total for what would have been several days or weeks of highly skilled work? 4 pounds, 17 shillings, 2 pence. Not bad at all if you compare it to a female servant’s income at about that time – maidservant Sarah Sherin made £4 a year in 1717, while in the farming world, a female labourer called Goody Currell was paid 4 pence a day at an Oxfordshire farm in 1759, fifty years later."

An article from the Colonial Williamsburg journal:

"The Worshipful Company of Blacksmiths in London lists sixty-five "brethren" and two "sistren" in its 1434 charter."

"A 1770 publication called The Tradesman's True Guide or a Universal Directory for the Towns of Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Walsal, Dudley and the manufacturing village in the neighborhood of Birmingham carries exhaustive lists of tradesmen and -women alphabetically by name and by trade. There are women listed in every trade from butcher to wire drawer."

"Only recently did a Colonial Williamsburg interpreter look closely at a nineteenth-century print that had been hanging on the wall at the Geddy House for years: a portion of Ben Franklin's Poor Richard Illustrated features a country blacksmith shop where four men are working, and in the right-hand corner, a woman hammers at an anvil rather inconspicuously. A 1505 Polish print is centered on a lovely woman at a spindle, but a careful inspection of the background shows a woman making a shoe on her knee."

The article notes the big error in modern & postmodern Feminist History: the idea that women "weren't allowed to work" doesn't hold up to scrutiny:

"What is more compelling is the lack of documentation that women were not allowed to work. Although religious practices and social norms might have restricted certain activities in some parts of the world, there were no laws prohibiting women from working a trade.

"Yet sometimes scholars and guests have a hard time accepting the notion that women did just that. Schumann says that "the greatest obstacle for the visitor is in accepting Rind as an eighteenth-century woman, and not a 'born-before-her-time' women's libber."

As I point out when demonstrating Letterpress Printing, an ordinary occupation of women since Gutenberg's time, women have always worked for pay - they had to make a living, then as now. This author agrees:
".... no matter what century it is, women have always done what is necessary to provide for themselves and their families."

Hillary, Obama, & the Democrats Mistake Monty Python For A Real Playbook

Hillary, Democrats, Media, & Quislings started out by pretending that poor old Hillary "I fall down but someone props me up again" Clinton was a shoe-in, despite that she's crooked and looney to boot, and they kept pretending all the way up to the Electoral College vote:






Democrats and Media pretend that Hillary lost >90% of the Continental Land Mass "because Voter ID":






Democrats, People Famous-For-Being-Famous, the Weirder of the Mainstream Media, Quislings, and College Freshmen ran around yelling, to nobody in particular, "Not My President":







Democrats, Illegal Aliens, and Professional Rioters ran around committing arson, vandalism, and generally acting like they live in the Third World when they found out that Hillary made history by being one of two women nominees who couldn't get enough people to actually vote for them to win the election in 2016:








Then they tried pretending that Hillary and Jill lost because of "rigged voting", until recounts showed more votes for Trump, and ... hey why are there more votes than voters in these places Hillary won?








Having lost the Presidency, the Senate, the House of Representatives, a majority of Governorships and most State Legislatures (Dems hold Governor & Legislative majorities in only FIVE states) , some Democrats begin calling for "bipartisanship":







Next, Obama, Hillary, Democrats & Quislings pretend Russia did mean things, but President Trump & the Deplorables aren't fooled:





And finally, the ridiculousness reached levels of clinical instability, because they have to live with the knowledge that in the end, all those people the Elites and Progressives and Globalists and Democrats have been laughing at... are not so ordinary after all.

MAGA!!!!!!!!!

Rogation Days: "Justice in the Preservation of the Boundaries"

"Rogation Days" were a church tradition in Europe that involved the whole community walking the boundaries of their village lands, led by their Priest and asking the blessing of God on it all.

Maybe if we had kept walking the boundaries and teaching children the landmarks, we would not be in such danger from the new iconoclasts today, who seem determined to tear down every landmark of civilization. From the article "Rogation and Ascension"  on Full Homely Divinity:

"The reminder of boundaries had another important impact on communal life. In a poem by the 20th century American Robert Frost, the poet's neighbor asserts that "good fences make good neighbors." Boundaries are often very important in relationships. As members of parishes beat the bounds, they would often encounter obstructions and violations of boundaries. The annual beating of the bounds provided an opportunity to resolve boundary issues. It also led to the tradition of seeking reconciliation in personal relationships during Rogationtide. The sharing of a specially brewed ale, called Ganging Beer, and a mysterious pastry, called Rammalation Biscuits, at the end of the walk was a good way of sealing the reconciliation.

"George Herbert gave the following good reasons to beat the bounds: 1) a blessing of God for the fruits of the field; 2) Justice in the preservation of the bounds; 3) Charity, in living, walking and neighbourly accompanying one another, with reconciling of differences at that time, if they be any; 4) Mercy, in relieving the poor by a liberal distribution of largess which at that time is or ought be made."  [in The Country Parson, Chapter 35]

First Amendment Quote of the Day - February 18, 2014

The Articles of the Warsaw Confederation, issued January 28, 1573 by a group of Polish and Lithuanian leaders, were an early written declaration of religious freedom in Europe, allowing all denominations to worship as they wished, without interference from anyone who did not approve or who professed otherwise, and without punishment, fines, or taxes from the government or King.

Excerpts:

"That, specifically, it is sworn to maintain civil peace among people who are differentiated by faith or religious practice, and that without a declaration of the sejm we never be forced across the borders of the realm by any royal action or request, not forced to pay five grzywna per shaft, nor shall there be a general levy called."

"Therefore we swear to rise up against anyone who would constitute or allow himself to be elected at a time or place other than that indicated, or who would desire to create tumult at the election, or who would accept bonded serving people, or who would dare to oppose an election concluded with complete assent."

"And whereas in our Commonwealth there are considerable differences in the Christian religion, these have not caused disorders among people, as detrimental as have begun in other kingdoms that we have clearly seen, we promise to one another, for ourselves and for our descendants, for all time, pledging our faith, honor and conscience, we swear, that we who are divided by faith, will keep peace among ourselves, and not shed blood on account of differences in faith or church, nor will we allow punishment by the confiscation of goods, deprivation of honor, imprisonment or exile, nor will we in any fashion aid any sovereign or agency in such undertakings. And certainly, should someone desire to spill blood on such account we all shall be obliged to prevent it, even if the person uses some decree as pretext or cites some legal decision."

"All ecclesiastical officials who enjoy royal benefits, such as archbishops, bishops, and all others similar, will be granted these prerogatives equally: to clergy of the Roman church and to those of the Greek church as both are by law Polish citizens."

"And so that peace may be broadly shared, and so that differences among the estates would be checked, and so that the differences in matters of temporal politics between the secular and ecclesiastical estates be small, we promise to coordinate all these matters at the next electoral sejm."

          The Articles of the Warsaw Confederation, issued January 28, 1573.  An English translation is at Reformation.org , and here is a link to the original text in Polish.