Laundry in Medieval Poland

[kaima]

Laundry Ladies in Medieval Poland

By Leslie Carr-Riegel

Same Bodies, Different Women: ‘Other’ Women in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period, eds. Christopher Mielke and Andrea-Bianka Znorovszky (Trivent, 2019)

Abstract: Usually considered to be “women’s work”, this paper takes a close look at how laundry was done in medieval Poland, calling into question common historical stereotypes. Washerwomen have all too often been portrayed as helpless victims in modern scholarship, forced by circumstances into an impoverishing, dirty profession eventually flowing into a downward spiral towards prostitution.


Woman washing laundry in the 14th century – Cod. Pal. germ. 794 fol 30v

However, evidence from medieval Poland argues that this paradigm ought perhaps to be re-examined. Employed by a wide section of society (for instance, students, clergy, and even the royal court) these women who scrubbed, rubbed, and bleached for a living were a constant fixture in any urban community. This paper explores who did laundry in medieval Poland and how, the status of the women who did it, and contemporary views of these “other” women.

Introduction: Laundry has long been considered “women’s work.” As a household chore, the creation and cleaning of garments has been the purview of female hands from time immemorial, it would seem. The image of a group of women with large bundles by the riverbank chatting whilst scrubbing away has become iconic. The laundry site has emerged as a female space par excellence, where news, gossip, and advice could be swapped away from the prying male gaze. On the other hand, laundresses have often been portrayed as victims and poor menial labourers whose lowly task exposed them to harassment, scandal, and a sudsy slide into prostitution. But are these stereotypical tropes really accurate?

You can download the paper at
trivent-publishing.eu/history/samebodiesdifferentwomen/10.%20Leslie%20Carr-Riegel.pdf

[Jaga]

I agree that being a laundrylady was not always a bad job. It allowed several ladies to go to the river, chat and do their work in the same time.
Stuill, this woul not be my best job possible

[kaima]

May 7, 2019 23:14:41 GMT -7 Jaga said:

I agree that being a laundrylady was not always a bad job. It allowed several ladies to go to the river, chat and do their work in the same time.
Stuill, this woul not be my best job possible

I like this article for what it tells us about everyday life. The writer states it does not mention much about laundry in the village because there are so very few sources of information to be found. Thus she concentrated on laundry done in the city and for the middle / business / trade class and nobility, for whom there are records.

She enumerates a number of things I suppose we should not be surprised at, but things that I never considered - but then I don't think much about laundry, though my main interest in history is how people lived.

She points out the need for formal businesses to do laundry on a regular and rather expensive basis - costing a student for a year about 1/4 the amount he paid for tuition!
The status of women to bring lawsuits.
The various soaps specialized for different cloth and different stains.
The differences between Polish and English churches in accepting women to touch altar cloths and such ...
And of course the existence of women laundry business owners rich enough to hire maids to do additional work as servants.
Girls from the countryside coming to town to work as servants to earn a dowery
The cost of clothing being so high that wives with servants would still (presumably) wash the fine or expensive clothing
(before they fully adapted western clothing styles, Hungarian nobility was supposed to pass their traditional clothing on to succeeding generations, as the value of the clothing consisted a large part of the family fortune)

I always wondered about the mechanics of "beating the clothing down at the stream side" to get the dirt out. It seems that would break fibers and could put great wear and tear on the clothing itself. Yes, I am happy we have it so easy today!

Kai

[kaima]

A few tantilizing tidbits:

(2) The paucity of sources from the countryside of medieval Poland means by unfortunate necessity the bulk of this article deals with women laundering in an urban environment.

While rural women continued to make use of local streams and pools for their washing needs, the situation was somewhat different in towns.(2) In towns and among the more prosperous peasants, laundry could be done at home using heated water and soap.

(2) The paucity of sources from the countryside of medieval Poland means by unfortunate necessity the bulk of this article deals with women laundering in an urban environment.

In practical terms, laundresses would likely have been amongst the cleanest people in society as the nature of their work demanded it.

… laundresses were no more stigmatized than other working women and were less likely to receive such treatment due to their relative wealth. Other traces of the status of washerwomen in society survive in sources where things went awry and the parties became involved in a legal dispute.

(28 From a cursory study, I have so far found no Polish literary evidence decrying washerwomen, a further in-depth research would however be recommended.)

Servants, like the hapless Piechna from the tale of St. Stanislaus, were often young women who left their home villages to seek work in nearby towns, particularly looking to raise money for a dowry. They would enter servant contracts on average a year in length where room and board was provided and they could earn between ½-1 grzywna of silver and a set of clothes. (29) This was a not an inconsiderable amount, as it was equivalent to 24-48 grosz when the average yearly income of a farming peasant household was around 107 grosz.30 A professional laundry woman meanwhile, as we have seen, might charge a single student 14 grosz to keep him in fresh linens year-round.31 By taking in more than one client, such a woman could rapidly increase her earnings and thus ensure her status above that of
contracted servants.

(29) The Polish grzywna was a weight and accounting measure, equivalent to 1 mark - roughly 48 grosz.

„The reason for Polish washerwomen having a better reputation than their western counterparts may reflect popular religious sentiments of the day. After all, two of Poland’s most popular female saints, St. Elizabeth of Hungary (d. 1231) and St. Jadwiga of Silesia (d. 1243), were associated with caring for the poor and happily cleaning their bodies and bed coverings(40) Donors of altar cloths appear to have been equally comfortable including money to launder their covering cloths, a job which was done by women even in the great Cathedral of St. Stanislaus in Krakow.(41) This stands in stark contrast for example with England, where there was some consternation about women touching
these sacred church articles, stained perhaps with the transubstantiated blood of Christ. In Poland, religious statutes required only that the women be “honest” who performed this service.(42) Laundry women in Poland thus appear to have suffered no greater stain to their reputation because of the nature of their work. They could earn at times significantly higher wages than other female service workers, bring successful cases to court, and were trusted enough by church authorities to handle sacred liturgical items. Far from dirty, desperate, and so poor they were forced to prostitute themselves, these women appear as comfortable members of the community.