 
Women focused on the children's upbringing during most of their life-time -even those of upper classes-, unless they joined a religious community. A considerable rate died in childbirth or because of its consequences. According to all sources, the virtue of noble ladies was focused on sprucing themselves up. There was a literary tradition that criticised sharply learned women. This fact was reinforced by the view of the Church about this matter, according to which men were warned about the danger of learned women, who doubtless existed. So these women spent most of their life-time in their chambers. Beds with a canopy, teapots, other objects placed on the shelf on top of the door, chests, sewing things, a triangular stool, and wooden high-heeled shoes were some of the significant details of a refined and documentary private life scene. As for paternal-filial relationships (among males), a chronicle from Módena can be cited: "if he fools around from seven to fifteen, try beating him with a stick…if he bothers you from fifteen to twenty, there is no solution but prison; it is not worth punishing them at the age of thirty, the son must be thrown out". However, it is added "do your best". Women were under their father's control until they were under their husband's .  Medieval features remain in furniture through the Renaissance epoch. Chests or trunks were typical pieces of furniture of this time, but bureaus, bargueños and other pieces of furniture quite expensive-only people of upper classes could afford them- would gain importance. 
The frailero armchair was very common; it had a simple designed piece of funiture with its back and seat made of embossed leather, or velvet, with bronze studs, some of them of beautiful shapes. Some of them were folding armchairs. Long shaped pews and benches of palaces and town halls had slightly sloping backs, and sometimes they were reclining seats. The benches of houses had drawers or could be used as trunks by raising the seat. These two features would be transferred to rustic furniture and can be found in the escafio, which was a bench-trunk with armrests and whose seat was a lid that could be raised. It could be used as seat or as a bed by placing a pallet on it. The trunk lids were decorated with inlays, although there were also traditional geometric bevelled patterns. Others could be upholstered of leather with bronze studs forming intricate patterns. 
Leds were wooden boards fully covered with rich bedclothes. The beds with legs sticking out of the mattress were more and more used and would evolve into beds with canopies and curtains. As for the style, mudéjar features remained, but there were also plateresque influences. There was a profusion of straight lines and simple planes, which means, according to D. Luis Feduchi, that: "As all the Spanish art, furniture is also dramatic and severe, and even rigid, but it always has the essential features of dignity and strength emphasized by deep and violent contrasts"..  The society of the late Middle Ages and the early Modern Age searched, more than ever, a balance between work and leisure in the succession of labour and festivities. Any pretext was good for enjoyment. In some occasions, the pretext was holidays, either universal or local, or simply fraternity feasts. In other occasions, the pretext could be any event related to the monarchy or feudal lords. 
The men who worked did so in farming activities, although they also had to make handicrafts for their own subsistence due to their precarious economic situation. When there was surplus, it could be sold in the local markets so as to get other goods. There were fairs with royal approval in Niebla and La Palma, where farming surplus could be sold. In these fairs peasants traded in some animals, wool, leather, wine or handicrafts. Craft workshops give us an idea of the importance of other jobs which were necessary for the appropriate development of the community, especially when the population was inside the walls of a castle. That is why medieval economy tended to self-sufficiency, for in a castle almost everything had to be made inside the walls.  
Carpenters and smiths made tools, furniture, arms and armours, carts… Others made bread, wine, sails,… They were organized in guilds that were more and more important. These guilds had regulations to limit their activities to their members only and to control their products. There were seven main guilds, just like liberal arts…One of the most important guilds was that of wool weavers, which produced most fabrics of that time. Once the wool was obtained from the shearing, it had to be treated successively by different artisans such as combers, those who skeined the wool,dyers… until the material got to the textile loom and, finally to consumers.  The Englishwoman of Niebla, as Ellen Mary Williams and Windsor -Whishaw when she got married- was affectionately called by her neighbours, was a many-sided, brilliant and intelligent woman who attracted the attention of great researchers of the andalusian south west. She was an advanced woman in many fields, such as archaeology -maybe the best known facet of her biography- , history, mithology, legends, popular arts and even music, empirical science or history of language. It was inevitable that such a peculiar personality did not provoke surprise and curiosity, to such an extent that there were people that suggested that Elena Whishaw was a theosopher, a mason, a spy, …although they recognised the value of her works on History. It is probable that her friendship with other curious persons such as Luis Claus, the german consul in Huelva, together with people's superstitions and the low cultural level of Huelva at that time, had a great influence on this perception.  As she points out in Atlantis in Andalucía, she and her husband arrived in Niebla in 1915. The works on Tartessos by Antonio Blázquez, Bonsor and Schulten, three famous archaelogists of this time, may have made her become interested in the Tinto's town. She must know Spain in detail by this time, judging by one of her publications (My Spanish year, 1914). 
Her dedication to History could not be in the beginning as intense as she would have wished: "at that time -she writes in 1929- all those who were from the Allied Nations paid more attention to the war daily reports (I World War) than to anything else". The peace brought quietness and the Whishaw renewed their works on the andalusian art and archaeology, the folk arts, especially embroidery, in Huelva and Niebla. In 1920 she went to Doñana when Schulten and Bonsor were excavating the Cerro del Trigo, to document one of her books, which would led her to take a number of journeys to Seville, Carmona, Córdoba and the north of Africa. In the late 1920s she became a widow and she focused even more on her activity, interrupted again by the Spanish Civil War, on which she wrote many articles for the Spanish and British press. Judging from the documentation of the Archivo Municipal de Niebla, she stayed in Niebla until 1940. On the whole, this documentation allows to reconstruct an important part of the history and the archaeology of western Andalusia and Niebla from the late 19th century through the first third of the 20th century. Glyn daniel called this period "The age of archaeologists and explorers". In these years Schlieman excavated Troy and Mycenae, Evans excavated Knossos, Petrie excavated Egypt and Bonsor and Whishow did so in western Andalusia and Luis Siret in Almería. |
ome reserch done on aristocracy -logically,the class from which more data remain-is useful to get an idea of the family life. To begin with, it seems that noble families had more children, most of which did not reach the age of puberty because of the high rate of infantile mortality. Many medieval images reflect such a tragic circumstance.