Managing an estate

by Maria Grace

There were two major types of great landowners in the regency era–the aristocrats who were deeply involved in running the government, but rather less hands-on in regards to their estates, and land-owning gentry, who were very hands-on and represented the majority of land owners.

A country estate was a complex economic mini-state that typically included a residence of sufficient size to suit a gentleman with parkland, gardens, stables and paddocks. A large agrarian business extended out from this center, consisting of a home farm and gardens, numerous tenanted farms and cottages usually in a village near the manor. The survival of the resident family, household staff, tenant farmers and their families and workers depended on revenues from the estate’s agricultural enterprises and rents. (Laudermilk, 1989) A successful estate owner needed solid business acumen.

But why? Gentlemen did not work for their income, did they?

Technically, they did not. Their income came largely from rents and investments. Estates often had small villages within their boundaries including church and parsonage, stone, brick or timbered farmhouses, and cottages, even wind/water mills in a few narrow lanes, all surrounded by productive (and often leased out) meadows and fields. (It was generally considered a village, not a town because it had no market, the defining characteristic of a small town.)

Estate owners might also receive revenue from the sale of products from their land, including crops, animal products, timber and minerals.

Rent

Estate owners leased out various kinds of property, including tenant farms of various sizes, houses and cottages, and even small estates that might be part of their holdings. Rents rose dramatically between 1790 and 1830, in some cases increasing fivefold over that period, making rents a considerable source of income, especially for large estate owners. (Murray, 1998)

Since a gentleman did not dirty his hands with money, for him to collect the rents from this himself would have been vulgar. A steward, or in the case off smaller estates, a bailiff, would be hired for that task and others related to estate management. 

Stewards and Bailiffs

Whereas a bailiff might be an estate’s major tenant hired to simply collect rents, a steward was an educated man, often the son of clergy, a smaller landowner or a professional man, hired to assist in the running and management of the estate. A steward was not considered a servant, but rather a skilled professional. For this reason, he was addressed as ‘Mister’. Not long after the regency era, the term ‘steward’, having servile connotations, was dropped in favor of the more professional term ‘land agent.’

Stewards frequently had experience and training as solicitors which was particularly useful in their duties managing contracts and overseeing estate accounts. Beyond these duties, stewards also collected rents, leased land, supervised the tenantry, directed any work done on the land, settled squabbles that arose among the tenants or workers, purchased animals, seed and so on. (Shapard,2003)

The steward would often have a home of his own, but would on occasion stay at the manor. His duties might regularly take him to the family's other country houses, and to London, but he was unlikely to travel with the family on a regular basis. (Martin, 2004)

Farming

Tenant farmers

By 1790, three quarters of England's agricultural land was cultivated by tenants. (Day, 2006) The remaining quarter represented small yeoman farmers whose numbers would decrease through the ensuing century.

Tenants usually rented sections of land with farmhouse and outbuildings, paid their rents on the established quarter days: Lady Day (March 25), Midsummer (June 24), Michaelmas (September 29), Christmas (December 25), sold the produce, and kept the earnings. Customary provisions required the landlord to supply materials, buildings and facilities such as drainage and hedging while the tenant provided stock, seed and tools. (Davidoff, 2002)

Farmers, including tenant farmers, made up the middling ranks of rural society. They could become quite well off with their sons and daughters educated as they moved up the social scale. Though the sons of tenants could not inherit the land their father’s works, they could inherit their farm leases. These leases, which traditionally ran for multiples of seven years, were often passed from father to son, with the land owners preferring to maintain the continuity of a known tenants and the relationships that went with it. (Davidoff, 2002)

It was not uncommon for a tenant farmer to rent extra land with additional farmhouses for adult sons to farm. The eldest son would eventually take over his father’s tenant farm when he retired or died. Widows might head a farm household, hiring help with the farm as needed until a young son was old enough to take over the tenancy. (Davidoff, 2002)

Tenants normally looked to their landlord for assistance whether for personal matters or for help in improvements to the land. Some of these improvements might include better ways to farm the land and improve productivity.

Farming methods

With populations rapidly increasing, the best landowners sought out advanced methods of agricultural science to improve production (and profits.) The agricultural reports of the newly formed Board of Agriculture were avidly studied to learn more about advancements including crop rotation, scientific stock breeding, and new technologies including the seed drill and machines for threshing and chaff cutting. The installation of drainage in fields was another innovation practiced by many farmers during this era. Heavy clay soils where excess water made plowing more difficult and hurt the growth and root structure of plants would have rows of drains cut beneath the surface to move water away from the fields. (Shapard, 2012)

Four-course crop rotation, commonly called the Norfolk four-course system, increased fodder production. There were many variations of this system, depending on the region. Typically, fields would be sown with wheat in the first year, turnips in the second, followed by barley in the third. The clover and ryegrass were grazed or cut for feed in the fourth year. This produced two cash crops and two animal feed crops.

One constant was the presence of livestock as part of the strategy. Sheep (or sometimes cattle) were turned out to graze the turnip tops. This kept weeds down and allowed the field to be fertilized by mobile manure factories. Turnip roots were stored for winter animal fodder. More fodder meant larger livestock herds and the ability to keep animals through the winter. Improvements like these could double one's income. (Laudermilk,1989)

In addition to increased agricultural production, estates began to enjoy profits from heretofore unexplored avenues such as mining and timber sales. Changes in technologies often fueled demand while improvements in transportation with new canals and steam engines made previously prohibitive production profitable.

Incomes

What kind of income could a landed estate provide? Naturally the answer depended a great deal on the size of the estate and the kind of management it had.

For a little perspective, the 1801 census found that the average income of the 287 peerage families (all of whom would have landed estates) was approximately £8,000 The top 2000 merchant families averaged £2,500, whereas the top 6000 esquires that Austen’s Mr. Bennet would have belonged to averaged £1,500. That suggests that the £2,000 a year Mr. Bennet had represents a very good income, compared to his peers.

To have an income above the average nobility as a gentleman estate holder, one did not spend a very great deal of time sitting about enjoying the social life of the town. While a man like Austen’s Mr. Darcy might take time to enjoy the finer things as it were, he would also have to spend a very great deal of time and effort in managing the massive agricultural enterprise that provided those finer things.

Technically a gentleman did not ‘work’ for his income. But planning how to keep an estate afloat through the long years of the French war, determining how best to manage the home farm and advise his tenants considering the price of corn, debating whether to invest in draining a new field or if rain will spoil the harvest or damage tenant houses that he will have to repair—and how to effect those repairs—seeking new hands to man the sawmill and cider press and what to pay them—all of that sounds a very great deal like what we today would call work. While there were inevitably bad landowners who put little into managing their estates, many, if not most put in a great deal of very hard work to manage estates that provided “livelihood and the stability for both the landowner and a vast army of workers–tenant farmers, gardeners, cowmen, sawyers and shepherds alike.(As well as providing employment for seasonal labourers like codders, harvesters, shearers…)” (Bennetts, 2012)

References

Adkins, Roy, and Lesley Adkins. Jane Austen's England. Viking, 2013.
Austen, Jane, and David M. Shapard. The Annotated Pride and Prejudice. New York: Anchor Books, 2003.
Austen, Jane, and David M. Shapard. The Annotated Sense and Sensibility. New York: Anchor Books, 2011.
Austen, Jane, and Edward Copeland. The Cambridge Edition of Sense and Sensibility. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Bennetts, M.M., “At the heart of a great estate is… .“ M.M.Bennetts. April 11,2012. Accessed May 20, 2014. http://mmbennetts.wordpress.com/2012/04/11/at-the-heart-of-a-great-estate-is/
Collins, Irene. Jane Austen and the Clergy. London: Hambledon and London, 2001.
Davidoff, Leonore, and Catherine Hall. Family fortunes: men and women of the English middle class, 1780-1850. London: Routledge, 2002.
Day, Malcom. Voices from the World of Jane Austen. David and Charles, 2006.
Ellis, Markman "Trade." In Jane Austen in Context , 269-77. Cambridge: University Press, 2005.
Girouard, Mark. Life in the English Country House: A Social and Architectural History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978.
Gornall, J.F.G. "Marriage and Property in Jane Austen’s Novels." History Today 17, no. 12 (December 1967). Accessed May 22, 2017. http://www.historytoday.com/jfg-gornall/marriage-and-property-jane-austen%E2%80%99s-novels.
Hitchcock, Tim, Sharon Howard and Robert Shoemaker, " Churchwardens and Overseers of the Poor Account Books ", London Lives, 1690-1800 (www.londonlives.org, version, 1.1 17 June 2012). https://www.londonlives.org/static/AC.jsp
Laudermilk, Sharon H., and Teresa L. Hamlin. The Regency Companion. New York: Garland, 1989.
LeFaye, Deirdre. Jane Austen: The World of Her Novels. New York: Abrams, 2002.
Martin, Joanna. Wives and Daughters: Women and Children in the Georgian Country House. London: Hambledon and London, 2004.
Morris, Diane H. “Mr. Darcy was a Second-Class Citizen.” Moorgate Books. August 10th, 2014. Accessed May 22, 2017. http://www.moorgatebooks.com/10/a-true-regency-gentleman-had-good-breeding/.
Ray, Joan Klingel. Jane Austen for Dummies. Chichester: John Wiley, 2006.
Selwyn, David. Jane Austen and Leisure. London: Hambledon Press, 1999.
Seven Trees Farm, “Norfolk four course.” Seven Trees Farm. April 30, 2012. Accessed May 29, 2017. http://seventreesfarm.wordpress.com/2012/04/30/norfolk-four-course/
Sullivan, Margaret C., and Kathryn Rathke. The Jane Austen Handbook: Proper Life Skills from Regency England. Philadelphia, PA: Quirk Books, 2007.
Swift, Deborah. “Law & Order - Duties of the Constable in 17th Century England.” English Historical Fiction Authors. May 24, 2017. Accessed May 29, 2017. http://englishhistoryauthors.blogspot.com/2017/05/law-order-duties-of-constable-in-17th.html
Trevelyan, George Macaulay. Illustrated English Social History. New York: D. McKay, 1949.
Vickery, Amanda. The Gentleman's Daughter: Women's Lives in Georgian England. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1998.
Watkins, Susan. Jane Austen's Town and Country Style. New York: Rizzoli, 1990.
Wilson, Ben. The Making of Victorian Values: Decency and Dissent in Britain, 1789-1837. New York: Penguin Press, 2007.

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Though Maria Grace has been writing fiction since she was ten years old, those early efforts happily reside in a file drawer and are unlikely to see the light of day again, for which many are grateful. 

After penning five file-drawer novels in high school, she took a break from writing to pursue college and earn her doctorate. After 16 years of university teaching, she returned to her first love, fiction writing.

Click here to find her books on Amazon. For more on her writing and other Random Bits of Fascination, visit her website. You can also like her on Facebook, or follow on Twitter.

Celtic Time-keeping

Time. Date. Minutes and Days. Modern life is plagued by the obsession of many who run their lives by logging minutes rather than living moments. Were we to deposit these people into the 5^th Century how would they survive without clock-watching? At the time my novels are set (mid 5^th Century AD) there were no clocks, watches, laptops, television, radios – no devices from which to discern the time of day. You looked at the arc of the sun or moon, the respective orb in the sky denoting day or night. The world around you - plants and weather - told you in which season you lived.

Celtic farmstead, North Wales c. 3rdC AD via timetrips.co.uk

For the Celts, their calendar was pastoral and linked to the turning wheel of the year, its repeated cycles of birth-growth-death as foliage sprang forth, bloomed and died back. Rural farming communities are slaves to these changes even today. The first ploughing begins at the start of February when the ground is warmer and softer following ‘cold-time’ (December/January) and lambs are born, which perhaps is why January-February was known by the Celts as ‘Anagantios’ (stay-home time). No point jetting off on that late winter-sun holiday when all the pregnant sheep are about to drop!

Celtic coin showing image of wheat, via resourcesforhistory.com

Every stage of the year was mapped by the events of nature and requirements of the farming community. To glean how important it was to the Celts, we need only look at archaeology. Farming was central to the lives of farmers and as such, made it onto coins of the time as can be seen from the cunobelinus coin shown above. We know the Celts kept calendars, though they are not as recognisable as the Roman Julian calendars we take for granted today, with numbered days of weeks, fortnights and 30 or 31 day months (with the obvious exception of February!). They were, however, sectioned into twelve segments throughout the pastoral year as follows:-

Jan/Feb            Anagantios                  Stay-home time

Feb/Mar           Ogronios                     Ice time

Mar/Apr          Cutios                          Windy time

Apr/May          Giamonios                   Shoots-show

May/Jun          Simivisonios                Bright time

Jun/Jul             Equos                          Horse time

Jul/Aug            Elembiuos                   Claim-time

Aug/Sep          Edrinios                       Arbitration-time

Sep/Oct           Cantlos                        Song-time

Oct/Nov          Samonios                     Seed-fall

Nov/Dec          Dummanios                 Darkest depths

It is evident from the Celtic meanings how our ancestors viewed the world around them and how entrenched in the natural sways of the earth their lives were. If we consider these unfamiliar-sounding names such as ‘Samonios’, the name itself does not immediately provide us with any understanding of that ‘month’. If we look at its meaning, however, we can identify with ‘Seed-fall’ around October/November, as we see it ourselves at this time of year. Trees and plants shed leaves and seeds and gardeners store tubers for the following spring. This makes sense to our modern minds. What may not make sense would be how the Celts noted down their calendars. As well as using their own language, they used their own text, known as ‘ogham’. The ‘ogham’ alphabet is based upon the woods of different trees connected with the various times of the year. Similar to runes, they appeared as vertical and horizontal bars of varying numbers.

Celtic tree calendar, via ogham.thewahzone.com

So, I’m staying home this Anagantios, at least until Ogronios is over. By then, as they say in Breton, Nevez-amzer will be here (new season/spring). Then just as I plan to do some serious gardening the winds arrive, darn that Cutios!

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Elaine writes historical fiction as 'E S Moxon'. Her debut Wulfsuna was published January 21st, 2015 and is the first in her Wolf Spear Saga series of Saxon adventures, where a Seer and one named 'Wolf Spear' are destined to meet. She is currently writing her second novel, set once again in the Dark Ages of 5th Century Britain. You can find out more about Book 2 from Elaine's website where she has a video diary charting her writing progress. She also runs a blog. Elaine lives in the Midlands with her family and their chocolate Labrador.

Raising the Calf, 1887 and 2015

by p.d.r. lindsay

I had a wonderful topic all sorted for this blog piece. The history of gingerbread, in particular the development of ginger bread from bread crumbs to cake. The eponymous heroine of my novel, Tizzie, spent much of her time in the kitchen and the dairy, and as it was 1887 the methods of making butter, cheeses, baking, and cooking were quite different from the ones I use today. Tizzie’s favourite recipe was for gingerbread. I had my copy of Mrs. Beeton’s Household Management, an 1880s version, all ready, along with Elizabeth David’s excellent book on bread, (from B.C. to today) a 1940s Cordon Bleu recipe book and my grandmother’s family gingerbread recipe from the 1880s. A little history of baking was going to be fun. Or it was.

Then I had a Tizzie week and had to play dairy maid and nurse to my calving heifers. I have a lifestyle block of 12 acres without modern conveniences like electricity outside, modern barns or mechanical aids. Even my house is 19th century and so it’s a hands on place, just as it would have been in 1887. The methods I use are the same as those used in the 19th century.

In my novel Tizzie was the dairymaid and general helper on her brother’s farm. The story begins as Tizzie is learning to remove her rose tinted spectacles, helped by her beloved niece, Agnes, and see that she is actually more a slave than a beloved sister-aunt. But she does love her cows. She hand rears them as calves and gentles them until they are heifers, and she finally helps them through their first calving. Once bonded with their first calf, through Tizzie’s help, she then has a useful and gentle cow for the rest of its life.

Have you any idea of just how much work that actually is? Well, I thought I had a fair idea, having done some of it. I hand raised my heifers from tiny calves. I did this as Tizzie did, as good dairymaids have done since cows became the prime farm animal. The advice is briefly mentioned in the farm manuals. Henry Stephens’s Book of the Farm (first published by Blackwood in 1844 and Hillyard’s Summary of Practical Fanning (1836) make mention of this aspect of dairy work, but Tizzie and her farming community would probably have garnered their information from the many farming journals, newspapers and periodicals published by agricultural societies formed in the 1840s. The Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England would have been too grand for Tizzie but the Yorkshire Agricultural Society’s pamphlets and papers would certainly have been available to her. Then there were the local agricultural shows which allowed a sharp eyed dairy maid to compare her cows and calves with others and learn new skills. Like Tizzie I also had knowledge passed to me by experts. Tizzie’s mother and grandmother passed on their knowledge to her as she was now teaching Agnes. I had done brief stints as a student on a dairy farm, but we used milking machines, modern feeding systems and dealt with the milk in a stainless steel dairy. Still calves were always handled carefully. I made pets of mine, fed and groomed them, spent an hour or two each day with them so that I would be able to manage with them full sized, but I only have two heifers not Tizzie’s ten. Her day was full; so was mine during calving time. What a performance, and one which has not changed much from Tizzie’s day.

Littlest heifer, Holly, kindly had her calf early in the morning so that when I went to call the heifers for food she was struggling to deal with this…thing? Imagine being a heifer who nine months previously had had fun with a nice friendly bull which popped into her life for a brief period of 6 or 8 weeks all those months ago. She had forgotten Murphy the Dexter bull, and now his gift to her scared her silly. I spent most of the morning coaxing her to lick the calf dry and let it nudge her udder. The ginger calf, the image of his Dad, knew much more than his Mum and tried to latch into a teat. I found myself stroking the udder, massaging teats and calming the heifer. Just as Tizzie and every dairy maid has done over the centuries. The 1887 Paget Report earnestly recommended the provision of county agricultural schools, something which Sir Charles, Tizzie’s village landlord, was busy trying to implement.The report wanted knowledge like Tizzie’s to be handed on so that people knew the best practices.

Once Holly had accepted her baby I had to separate her from the other heifer, Curiosity, who lived up to her name and kept poking her nose in between calf and mum. Holly would follow me to the shippon (cow shed), but the calf would not. Have you ever tried to pick up a calf? Even new born it weighs far more than you think. I am so pleased I deleted a passage where Tizzie was carrying calves about like bundles of hay. Nervous cows tread all over your feet as Holly did. I had remembered that, and Tizzie had strong boots.

Worse was yet to come. Two days later Curiosity attacked Holly and chased the calf all round the field. Holly dived back into the shippon, and I managed to get the calf in after distracting Curiosity with food. How had Tizzie managed with ten calving around the same time? Poor Curiosity wanted privacy for her calving, hence the chasing off of her companions. Alas, after one hour she was distressed, and I was not Tizzie who could slid a greased arm inside the cow and set the calf right for its birth. The vet came, and together with ropes and chains and a thing like a car jack we hauled one large bull calf into the world. It took two hours of really hard work, me pulling along with the vet. I am ashamed to think I had Tizzie doing a similar though less complex birth more quickly. The vet did assure me that if a calf is turned to present itself properly in the birth canal the cow can usually deliver it herself with just a little gentle tugging. Curiosity’s calf was too big, and she had no hope of delivering it without our help. In the 1880s soft calving ropes were available to tie round the forelegs and head of a stuck calf, but it would have taken two strong men to release a calf the size of Curiosity’s. I cannot find details of this kind of calving to know if they bothered. Tizzie would have tried, but natural selection was allowed to take place so that only the cows capable of easily birthing calves would survive.

Both heifers have now settled into being anxious mums watching over their crazy little calves, and I wish I had added something somewhere in the novel about Tizzie having fun watching the comical antics of day old calves as they skip, hop, leap and chase each other. It’s a sight to make anyone smile.

Why would a farm dairy maid spend so much time and effort on a few calves? Most of those small farms in the Yorkshire Dales ran only three, no more than ten cows. But, like today, calves in 1887 were worth a lot of money. An extract from the 1883 ‘The Leeds Mercury’ newspaper for Monday 22 October has a report on Gunnerside Fair, "There was a large company present and an active business doing at this fair. Calving cows made up to £22, calving heifers £17 to £20, calves from six to ten months old up to £8, two-year-old bullocks £12 to £14…" That was a fair sum of money for a small Dales farm, and many of the small farms were only 30 acres or so. They needed every penny they could make.

Then consider the price of the produce. Again an extract from ‘The Leeds Mercury’ on Monday 7 July, 1884. "Richmond, Saturday:-Butter 1s to 1s 2d per lb; eggs 12 and 13 for 1s;…Swaledale and Wensleydale cheese 80s to 86s per cwt." (s stands for a shilling and d stands for a penny or pence.) Dales farmers needed good and careful dairy maids to earn them top prices for butter, cheese, cream and the milk they sent to the large towns on the new railway. Money, actual cash in hand, was important when most farmers had to buy in hay, and hay prices fluctuated wildly depending on the weather. An extract from ‘The Leeds Mercury’ in 1889. "The price of hay has worked its way up from 4½d to 9d per stone. It costs some of the farmers over 1s per stone and means ruination to many."

When these Victorian Dales hill farms ranged from 30 to 100 plus acres, usually of pasture and meadow land, they could only manage to farm small numbers of animals. One farm of about 110 acres hoped to farm 300 sheep, milk 9 or 10 cows and "bring up a good few young calves." There was great value to a farming family if they had healthy contented calves and cows to sell. There still is today.

References:
The Development of the Victorian Agricultural Textbook by Nicholas Goddard
Department of Geography, Anglia Polytechnic University.

‘The Leeds Mercury’ newspaper
Details: http://leedsmercury.mirfield-2ndlook.info/LMabout.html
Archive access at the site.

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p.d.r.lindsay's title Tizzie was a semi-finalist in the M.M. Bennetts Award for Historical Fiction.

p.d.r. lindsay (no capitals please in tribute to one of her favourite poets, e. e. cummings) makes New Zealand home. Born in Ireland, educated in England, Canada, and New Zealand, and having worked in many different countries, she calls herself a citizen of the world.

As a novelist she prefers writing historical stories about ordinary people, the ones whose names and lives we don't know much about. Major events and political figures, kings and queens are well chronicled in the usual history books. It is how those events affected ordinary people which stimulate her to first reading the diaries and letters of parsons and farmers, wives and husbands, brothers and sisters, merchants and tradesmen and then finding a way of telling their stories.

When home in New Zealand, p.d.r.lindsay tutors would-be writers and promotes New Zealand novels and their writers, especially the Independent Published writers. Originator and founder member of Writer’s Choice Writer’s Co-operative, she works with her colleagues to publish the best quality fiction, professionally edited and designed, for readers’ enjoyment.

Find p.d.r.lindsay and the Writer’s Choice novels at:
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www.writerschoice.org
www.rowanlindsay.co.nz

Retting and Rippling - The Story of Linen

By Deborah Swift

My novels often include references to the growing of flax and also to linen, which is the cloth produced from it. It became less popular in the early twentieth century because it creases so easily, though it is now more widely used. But in the 17th century it was one of the most commonly used fabrics,and the flax plant was native to English, Scottish and Irish soil.

Sowing of flax was done after the winter frosts, and the growing season was about three months during which time the stalks would grow to three feet high. Sometimes one patch would be left uncut to provide seed for the next year's harvest. The stalks were pulled up by hand and gathered into bundles which were then stacked in stooks.

Field of linen stooks

Next the stalks were laid out to decompose - called retting. Spread out on the grass they would rest there for thirty days or so to get the morning dew. If there was not enouigh dew or rain, then the flax would be watered. Sometimes flax was left in steams or ponds but this polluted the water, and clean water was a valuable resource. Once the woody part has decomposed then the flax was dried by turning it regularly in the sun.

Dressing the Flax

The straw had to be broken by a flax breaker, a wooden paddle to bash the stalks. Then the shoves (broken straw ) was removed, and scutching could take place. Scutching was separating the fibres by beating then still further and then dragging the fibres through a long comb (riddling) to take out any remaining straw and smooth the fibres.

Line and Tow

Line is the finest threads of flax, and tow the coarsest. Line (from which we get the word linen) produced a cloth suitable for wearing - shirts for example. Tow produced a harder wearing cloth for awnings, sacks and sails.

Spinning and Weaving

Dutch spinning wheels were introduced into Ireland in 1632 by the Earl of Strafford. Ireland was a big centre of flax production in the 17th and 18th centuries, employing thousands of women and the spinning wheel and distaff. (Shakespeare describes one of his characters as having hair 'like flax upon a distaff').

Bleach Green

Linen Garments

Once woven into cloth, linen was widely used for nightclothes and shirts because of its ability to absorb water (sweat) so it was very hygenic to wear next to the skin. Linen was often used for pleated cloths where it would be folded and dried into pleats. If it was ever washed it then had to be re-pleated, as the water would remove the pleats. Kerchiefs to cover the head were usually of fine linen. In England wool was the main industry, so the linen trade is often overlooked in historical novels. In the period I like to write about, tithes were often paid in bolts of linen cloth which, if the cloth was fine, were costlier than wool. White linen was much prized by the aristocracy for bed linen and table cloths. In Ireland the cloth was bleached by laying out the woven lengths on bleach greens, a  custom that actually continued right up until the 1930's.

1640's nighshirt in linen - Fashion Museum, Bath

One of my favourite parts of learning about old crafts is to learn the particular vocabulary associated with them, vocabulary that has almost disappeared from modern English.

And - here are my books! - You can find out more about them by clicking, which will take you to my website.

Deborah