Women's Work

The woman on the right is carding wool; that is, working it between two instruments like large hairbrushes covered with little hooks, to disentangle it and ensure the fibres all point in the same way, producing a kind of fuffy sausage.
   The lady on the left is spinning the result on what was called the "Great Wheel", an important invention of the later Middle Ages. 
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Spinning was always done by women, and was their main occupation after farmwork, which is why an unmarried woman became known as a Spinster. Weaving cloth was usually done by men; but a woman weaver was known as a Webster. Other surnames originating in the woollen industry include Fuller and Dyer. Fulling involved trampling the woollen cloth to pre-shrink it; using "fuller's earth" in the process. After this, cloth would be stretched out on a "tenter frame" to preserve its shape whilst drying: hence the phrase "to be on tenterhooks".
   
   From the earliest mediaeval times, raw wool and woollen cloth constituted the vast majority of English exports, until overtaken by cotton at the end of the 18th century. Very many of the great churches and monasteries were built on the profits of the woollen industry; almost all of which would have passed through women's fingers!  

Incidentally, the shadowy figures in the background show that this document is a "Palimpsest": a previously-used parchment that had been carefully scraped so that it could be used again. Parchment was too valuable to be thrown away!