DOMESTIC OCCUPATIONS 229
The work necessary to construct buildings such as these was
done with a minimum of skilled labour. Every village, of course,
had a carpenter (or woodwright) among its inhabitants, and he
was undoubtedly one of the essential figures of medieval life;
but, save for woodwright and wheelwright, skilled workers were
not so easily found, and most medieval building operations of a
simple nature were done by the common-sense knowledge and
skill of the untrained villagers, assisted where necessary by the
carpenter, the thatcher, or the plasterer. "The rougher part was
done by customary tenants, who tore down old walls, dug the
clay, and fetched water to 'temper' it; pulled off the old thatch
and cut and brought stubble for the new."1 In the same way the
tenants of the Bishop of Chichester were forced to aid in the
building of new barns under the direction of a master carpenter,2
and there was little in the everyday run of things that the peasant
was not prepared to tackle, both about his own close and at the
manor house itself.
This side of medieval domestic life is thus admirably summed
up by Lord Ernie:
Women spun and wove wool into coarse cloth, and hemp or nettles
into linen; men tanned their own leather. The rough tools required
for the cultivation of the soil, and the rude household utensils needed
for the comforts of daily life, were made at home. In the long winter
evenings, farmers, their sons, and their servants carved the wooden
spoons, the platters, and the beechen bowls. They fitted and riveted
the bottoms to the horn mugs, or closed, in coarse fashion, the leaks in
the leathern jugs. They plaited the osiers and reeds into baskets and
into "weeles" for catching fish; they fixed handles to the scythes,
rakes, and other tools; cut the flails from holly or thorn, and fastened
them with thongs to the staves; shaped the teeth for rakes and harrows
from ash or willow, and hardened them in the fire; cut out the wooden
shovels for casting the corn in the granary; fashioned ox-yokes and
bows, forks, racks, and rack-staves; twisted willows into scythe-
cradles, or into traces and other harness-gear. Travelling carpenters,
smiths, and tinkers visited detached farmhouses and smaller villages,
at rare intervals, to perform those parts of tfce work which needed
their professional skill. Meanwhile the women plaited straw or reed
for neck-collars, stitched and stuffed sheep-skin bags for cart-saddles,
peeled rushes for wicks and made candles. Thread was often made
1 Davenport, op. cit. p. 22.
8 Sussex Rec. Soc. xxxi, pp. 54, 76.