Gender, work and visibility : the examples of agriculture and textile production (15th and 16th centuries)
Year: 2026
Type: book-chapter
Abstract: I examine social and economic conditions of work and service in crafts and in agriculture from the perspective of gender history. I discuss ‘elevated’ service in artistic handicrafts, non-guilded weaving in the household up to collective work in agriculture, wine-growing, and construction – corvées included. There existed hierarchies and social relations at different levels of society. While in the (urban) textile trades work and family household were linked, the bookkeeping of secular episcopal administration and hospitals allows us to analyse collective work situations. Apart from the high cultural labour of arti sanal craftswomen (tapestries), the living conditions and economic situation of (women) textile workers, day labourers of both sexes, and farm labourers are comparable in that, due to fluctuating labour supply and low wages, there was dependency on changing em ployers and straightforward ‘employment biographies’ cannot be expected.
DOI: 10.5167/uzh-436075
Author: Rippmann Tauber, Dorothee
Language: English
Subfield: Economics and Econometrics
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7213418737