In Hanse times – and today – many workers are needed for the many manual operations in textile production. While today we often perceive textile work as a leisure activity for women, women and men were equally involved in textile production in the Hanse era. However, there are said to have been differences between town and country and in the various stages of work.

Pictorial sources from the Hanse period often show women with skirts and spindles. The motif can be traced back to the Bible verse on the “Praise of the Efficient Woman”, which declares that her virtue consists in diligently spinning flax and wool, weaving cloth and thus supplementing the family’s income.

Although the preacher Berthold of Regensburg in the mid-13th century wished for “women to sit at home and spin”, women were active in many economic sectors. In Frankfurt, for example, there is evidence of around 200 professions in which women were active. The textile industry is one of the most important, but there is also evidence of women working as brewers, candle-makers and organ builders.

In order to produce the masses and quality of cloth needed for the Hanseatic period, however, it was probably not possible to entrust only one sex with the task of spinning. Historians today assume that both men and women were involved in the textile production process: More hands mean a larger production volume.