Such were the manners and styles of the period with which the Middle Ages closed and the modern era began. They were not markedly different from those of the later Middle Ages generally, but that was because fundamental changes in society do not find their first expression in matters which are superficial. The great revolution which had been going on in the basic forms of society, through peaceful processes as well as social upheavals and the prowess of arms, had its reflux more in the morals than in the manners of the age. Nevertheless, one cannot pursue the theme of custom and manners throughout the mediæval period without being conscious of a progress or development significant of more than mere caprice. This, in fact, was the case. Any philosophic treatment of English society during the Middle Ages would have to take cognizance of manners and customs as indices of the growth of political, constitutional, and religious principles; and in this growth would appear the consistently developing status of woman.
While it is difficult to fix upon any one fact as comprehending the condition of women in English society at the close of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the new era, there is one which challenges attention. In reaping the harvest of the narrow and bigoted times through which she passed, woman found herself possessed of one sort of fruitage, namely, public rights. The essential equality of the woman and the man, which first appeared in the castle, had become a general fact of English society. Feudalism and its vassalage of the female sex had disappeared, and the women of the industrial classes, whatever their economic condition, became sovereigns of themselves. The women of the towns, largely through the instrumentality of the guilds, had established precedents which marked the path of their progress as "persons" before the law. Associated industry drew them out of their homes, or at least out of the limited sphere of home life, and placed in their hands the loom and the spindle of the world's industry. "The candle" of the goodwife "that went not out by night" no longer burned for the provident industry of household needs, but became a veritable torch to illumine the paths of England's commerce and to add to that glory of civilization which constitutes her commercial greatness.