When Women Step Up

I love when books aren't quite what I expect of them.  Ellin Carsta's The Draper's Daughter proved to be exactly that!  From the description, I expected the book to be equally about the two characters mentioned, Stephen and Elisabeth Hardenstein, the twin children of a Cologne, Germany, draper, or cloth merchant.  However, it isn't.

Stephen Hardenstein returns home at the beginning of the book, having been kicked out of his apprenticeship in another city, reportedly for theft.  While this introduces us to Stephen's dissolute ways, which continue to be an issue throughout the book, the story is actually about Elisabeth, and how she comes into her own.

While Stephen has been away, Elisabeth has been learning at her father's right hand, and shows herself to be a capable business woman, with quite a bit of natural talent.  However, this is 1350's Germany--women are second to their husbands, fathers and brothers.  Therefore, when her father has a stroke and is incapacitated, Elisabeth must step back and allow Stephen, who suddenly has an interest in the business, step forward.  However, Stephen is a terrible businessman, so it's lucky that Elisabeth has a few plans of her own.

The best part of this book is seeing the changes in Elisabeth.  While she pushes against her brother inheriting in the beginning of the book, she then meets Esther.  Esther is a Jewish woman who had left the city before the Jews of Cologne were slaughtered in a pogrom (massacre) in 1349.  Esther has her own business, despite being married, and is financially independent, with her husband's non-financial support.  It is Esther who first starts to convince Elisabeth that she can make her own business, and she does by using some of the cloth she's received to sew dresses for the wealthy women of town, which everyone seems to want.  During this time, Elisabeth's father recovers, and supports Elisabeth's claims, before suffering and dying from another stroke.

Which is when Stephen shows what a snake he really is.  He takes over the business, including the work Elisabeth is in the middle of.  Rather than being upset, however, clever Elisabeth uses her brother's nature against him, as well as develops a couple new plans of  her own.  In the end, she comes out on top.  She even gets the guy she likes, although that was a bit of a let down for me.  I rather liked it when that was taken and she was looking at other opportunities.

This book was a really interesting look into the 1300's in Germany, and especially into the middle class.  The Cologne picture I've posted to the left is the modern day city, but the Cathedral that you see to the right would have dominated medieval landscape even more than it does this image.  It was really interesting to me to compare it to World Without End by Ken Follet, because one of the main characters there is a wool merchant's daughter during the same general time frame in England.  They're similar fields.  What I found particularly interesting was that there while women were supposed to be under their male relations, it was relatively easy for them to work in their own right as long as they were recognized by their respective guilds.  History has done women a disservice, taking away our independence and making us fight to have it back.

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