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Ale, beer and brewsters in England : women's work in a changing world, 1300-1600

Author: Judith M Bennett
Publisher: New York : Oxford University Press, 1996.
Edition/Format:   Book : EnglishView all editions and formats
Summary:
Women brewed and sold most of the ale drunk in medieval England, but after 1350, men slowly took over the trade. By 1600, most brewers in London - as well as in many towns and villages - were male, not female. Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England investigates this transition, asking how, when, and why brewing ceased to be a women's trade and became a trade of men. Drawing on a wide variety of sources - such as
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Details

Document Type: Book
All Authors / Contributors: Judith M Bennett
ISBN: 0195073908 9780195073904
OCLC Number: 34077728
Description: xiv, 260 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.
Contents: Brewsters --
When Women Brewed --
New Markets, Lost Opportunities: Singlewomen and Widows as Harbingers of Change --
Working Together: Wives and Husbands in the Brewers' Gild of London --
New Beer, Old Ale: Why Was Female to Male as Ale Was to Beer? --
Gender Rules: Women and the Regulation of Brewing --
These Things Must Be if We Sell Ale: Alewives in English Culture and Society --
Women's Work in a Changing World --
Interpreting Presentments under the Assize of Ale.
Responsibility: Judith M. Bennett.
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Abstract:

Women brewed and sold most of the ale drunk in medieval England, but after 1350, men slowly took over the trade. By 1600, most brewers in London - as well as in many towns and villages - were male, not female. Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England investigates this transition, asking how, when, and why brewing ceased to be a women's trade and became a trade of men. Drawing on a wide variety of sources - such as literary and artistic materials, court records, accounts, and administrative orders - Judith Bennett vividly describes how brewsters (that is, female brewers) slowly left the trade. She tells a story of commercial growth, gild formation, changing technologies, innovative regulations, and finally, enduring ideas that linked brewsters with drunkenness and disorder.

Examining this instance of seemingly dramatic change in women's status, Bennett argues that it included significant elements of continuity. Women might not have brewed in 1600 as often as they had in 1300, but they still worked predominantly in low-status, low-skilled, and poorly remunerated tasks. Using the experiences of brewsters to rewrite the history of women's work during the rise of capitalism, Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England offers a telling story of the endurance of patriarchy in a time of dramatic economic change.

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