Working Lives

Abstract Female servants are assumed to have undertaken ‘domestic’ tasks including washing, cooking, and cleaning, whereas male servants worked predominantly in agriculture. Adopting a verb-oriented approach, this chapter demonstrates that this assumption does not hold. Through close analysis of over 300 examples of work tasks performed by female servants recorded in church court depositions, the chapter firstly demonstrates the breadth of working activities that women in service were engaged in: domestic work, husbandry, food and textile production, care work, and errand running. The chapter therefore reassesses the value of their work by highlighting the economic importance of their non-market labour, as well as their contribution to generating income for the household. Secondly, the chapter situates these working activities within local working cultures and practices by reconstructing the social and temporal dynamics of their work activities. Female servants’ working activities were spread across the day, week, and year with a peak in activity on Sundays. They laboured alongside men and women, members of the household, and their neighbours. Their work was essential to the functioning of the household.