Megan Rousseau
Thesis Title: Valuing Women's Work in late Medieval England
My project seeks to value medieval women’s domestic unpaid work, this work supported and sustained the household through a ‘core’ economy, but it is ignored within economic theory as it is considered to be ‘non-market activity’ despite its likely high value. Women would keep hearths alight, cook, wash, clean, attend to and feed family members, fetch water, make and mend clothes, tend to any livestock or garden to provide for the household and various other tasks that were essential for the productivity and stability of the household. At the same time women would often undertake commercial activities within and away from the home to further support their household. This could include domestic jobs such as spinning, weaving, carding, brewing, baking, selling household surpluses, these jobs were tied to the house and could be done during and in addition to domestic chores. This project will observe both women’s industrial and remunerative household tasks to come to a conclusion on how valuable medieval women’s work was, we also ask whether or not non-market unpaid work can be valued; if economic partnerships are observable within medieval households; whether women’s work was more valuable in urban commercial settings than a rural agricultural context; all whilst tackling a negative over-arching scholarly narrative that medieval women had little impact or value in comparison to their male counterparts. This project will seek to fill the gap in determining how ‘profitable’ and valuable to the household women’s work was.
Biography
I undertook my BA Hons degree at the University of Nottingham where I was also supported by my supervisors in my successful ESRC application. I will continue at the University of Nottingham on a 1+3 pathway, I am currently undertaking the masters and will go on to study English medieval women and their work in my PhD.
I am generally interested in social and gender history and tend to focus on the medieval period.
Economic & Social History
University of Nottingham
2022 Cohort, 1+3
Supervisory Team
Richard Goddard
Rossano Balzaretti