중세 및 근대기의 상공업에 종사한 여성연구

A study on the women in commercial and industrial circles in middle and modern ages

This article addresses women engaged in commercial and industrial businesses in middle and modern ages, beyond the traditional women’s roles in the church activities, kitchen cooking and child care, in order to contribute to their family income. Women’s professional activities depend greatly upon the social cognition. Women at that time had to suffer many social discriminations. Focusing upon this, I am going to analyse such discriminations shown in their business lives. In concrete, I am going to inquire into how the city ordinances and guild’s statutes since the 12th century in German cities had affected women’s professional activities, As far as related materials and data are available, these ordinances and statutes are compared with those of London, Paris and Lyon. Because of insufficient materials, it is hard for women’s professional activities to be generalized. But, the women’s social position, professional activities and relations with the guild are largely summarized as follows: In the medieval darkness, there were few distinctions in terms of sexual role on the contrary. Women’s professional activities were widespread on account of women’s surplus in population. Since the 14th century, women’s professional activities had gradually been restricted with the formation of guilds, Women had few chances for obtaining the apprenticeship. Women were not allowed to become guildsmen except master’s bereaved widows or daughters. The shrinkage of women’s professional activities during the transition to the modern ages is considered founded on the Religion Reformation, population increase and economy growth. The image of wise mother and good wife supported by the Protestantism and continuous witch huntings drove women away from their business lives, thereby causing the loss of women’s autonomy. Natalie Zemon Davis thinks this phenomenon as one of social inequalities resulting from the unstable handicraft economy and the intensified patriarchal values. It reasonably may be to a great extent due to ‘unequal professional training’ that women didn’t retain their position in business lives during the middle ages and handicraft businesses to date rest almost solely with men. In spite of equal chances for apprenticeship women were excluded from professional training due to rising apprentice charges. It is desirable to draw a distinction between master widows and independent crafts-women because they had different legal authorities and positions in the guild. In this sense, the research on medieval women by K. Bücher who handled these two groups as equal and therefore maintained the sexual equality in the guild must be criticized and leaves something to be researched further. Finally, I acknowledge that this article is limited to women’s professional activities in view of their relationships to the guild. Nevertheless, I hope that this article will give an opportunity for women, who has been undervalued under the patriarchal thoughts since the 16th century, to be recognized newly as independent economy subjects.