Feelings of hopelessness among medieval workers trapped in the poverty
cycle gradually lessened as it became possible for women’s labor to supplement
a family’s money income by more than pennies. By 1300, women spinners could be
found working on their own for wealthy sponsors, even after the introduction in Italy and France of
prohibition against advancing money for supplies to women spinners. Historians
have usually interpreted this prohibition simply as evidence of women’s
economic subjection, since it obliged them to turn to usurers; however, it was
also almost certainly a response to a trend toward differential reward for
women’s higher skill. Yarn can be spun irregularly and lumpily, but perfectly
smooth yarn is worth more. Working for merchant entrepreneurs on time rates,
women had been paid hardly more than children; working as entrepreneurs
themselves and producing good work by the piece, they could break into
the rational system of differential rewards.
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