30 THE MANORIAL SYSTEM 



those parts of the work which needed their professional skill. But 

 every village of any size found employment for such trades as those 

 of the smith and the carpenter, and the frequency with which 

 " Smiths Ham " appears among field names suggests the value 

 which the inhabitants attached to the forge and the anvil. Mean- 

 while the women plaited straw or reeds for neck-collars, stitched 

 and stuffed sheepskin bags for cart-saddles, peeled rushes for 

 wicks and made candles. Thread was often made from nettles. 

 Spinning-wheels, distaffs, and needles were never idle. Home- 

 made cloth and linen supplied all wants. Flaxen linen for board- 

 cloths, sheets, shirts or smocks, and towels, as the napkins were 

 called, on which, before the introduction of forks, the hands were 

 wiped ; was only found in wealthy houses and on special occasions. 

 Hemp, in ordinary households, supplied the same necessary articles, 

 and others, such as candle-wicks, in coarser form. Shoe- 

 thread, halters, stirrup- thongs, girths, bridles, and ropes were 

 woven from the " carle " hemp ; the finer kind, or " finable " hemp, 

 supplied the coarse linen for domestic use, and " hempen home- 

 spun " * passed into a proverb for a countryman. Nettles were 

 also extensively used in the manufacture of linen ; sheets and table- 

 cloths made from nettles were to be found in many homes at the 

 end of the eighteenth century. The formation of words like spin- 

 ster, webster, lyster, shepster, maltster, brewster, and baxter 

 indicated that the occupations were feminine, and show that 

 women spun, wove, dyed, and cut out the cloth, as well as malted 

 the barley, brewed the ale, and baked the bread for the family. 



1 Midsummer- Night' a Dream, Act iii. Sc. 1. 



