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Women, Work, and Life Cycle in a Medieval Economy$
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Women, Work, and Life Cycle in a Medieval Economy: Women in York and Yorkshire c.1300-1520

P. J. P. Goldberg

Print publication date: 1992

Print ISBN-13: 9780198201540

Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2011

DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198201540.001.0001

Moving to Town

Chapter:
(p. 280 ) 6 Moving to Town
Source:
Women, Work, and Life Cycle in a Medieval Economy
Author(s):

P. J. P. Goldberg

Publisher:
Oxford University Press
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198201540.003.0006

This chapter examines population movements. Migration in search of employment, particularly by the young and unmarried, was a characteristic feature of pre-industrial society. Evidence of merchets suggests that a high rate of marital exogamy was normal in medieval England and many women left their native communities to live with their husbands. Between 1399 and 1416, despite a very high rate of turnover among tenants between rentals, women tenants considerably outnumbered men. Thereafter, the sexes tended to be more evenly divided, though males outnumber females in most years.

Keywords:   migration, Black Death, abandonment, merchets, rural labour

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