Organizing specialized production: gender in the medieval Flemish wool cloth industry (c. 1250–1384)

Abstract

ABSTRACT:In the earliest centuries of the Flemish wool cloth industry, the lower-level, preparatory stage of wool processing and spinning was organized by a form of ‘putting-out’ significantly different from later forms in the industry. It took place in and around the cities or smaller drapery centres rather than in rural areas, and women were prominent as middle-level organizers, managers and small entrepreneurs, despite their marginal status in or exclusion from the craft guilds. Using small bits of evidence from Flemish regulations and contracts from the earliest documented period of cloth production, this article analyses lower-level organization through the lens of gender. It shows that the production of yarn was organized by a broad middling level of drapers and small marketsellers, who were women, men and husbands and wives working together. The gendered lens distinguishes this middle level, which was indispensable to the efficient production of wool cloth in medieval Flanders.