The English Housewife

Dean Tudor is a journalism professor at the Ryerson Polytechnical
Institute and founding editor of the CBRA.

Originally published in 1615, this book was described as “containing the inward and outward virtues which ought to be in a complete woman; as her skill in physic, cookery, banqueting-stuff, distillation, perfumes, wool, hemp, flax, dairies, brewing, baking and all other things belonging to a household.” It does all this very effectively, and more, aided by the annotations and introductions furnished by Michael Best of the University of Victoria. This is a look at women’s work in the early seventeenth century, and an account of day-to-day English life.

The nine distinct chapters range from household maintenance to agricultural work to cooking to caring for a family. By any measure this is an account of upper-middle-class life, the woman is of the landed gentry, and can, presumably, read (she, not he). Best provides extensive explanations and neatly summarizes the housewife’s character, status, duties, and skills. He concludes with a long and important bibliography and a glossary of terms (Markham’s book, being the first of its kind in English, is quoted quite extensively in the Oxford English Dictionary). There is also an appendix from Markham’s earlier The English Husbandman (1613), concerning a model of a countryman’s house. Maybe we could have both books available as a uniform set?