Well, Aaron, that is why I am glad I had the luck to have access to Turnau's book (the 1988 English edition) and other sources of more accurate knitting history. The story about the origin of the knitting frame seems to be one of those nice little fantasies that the Victorians liked to tell. Researchers have been trying to find any evidence that William Lee even existed, and there's precious little to be found. Yet _somebody_ invented the first knitting machine. (There were non-mechanical ones probably like large scarf boards in some guild workshops before 1600; there are regulations for how many were allowed, but we have no descriptions of them. Mary Thomas's Knitting Book shows a few stocking-size knitting rings, like the modern plastic hat rings only much finer, but there is no way to date them.)
According to what I have read, you are correct, virtually everyone over the age of three could and did knit, for several centuries after knitted stockings became not only standard but fashionable. Knitted stockings were worn by commoners and children in England before they were fashionable enough for the court. But there was a major difference between home knitting, common knitting for sale, and guild quality work, and the guilds worked hard to keep it that way. Often, you can tell whether something was being done by how often it is regulated or prohibited. The guild regulations were repeated when they were broken too often. Some of the regulations prohibit selling the knitting done by female servants as guild work. Wives and family could sell their work as guild products, but it was pushing the limit to include the maid. That didn't mean she couldn't sell her work, just that it couldn't be given the guarantee of quality that the guilds wanted to maintain. The guild mark was like the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, or any other reliable modern organization's mark of quality. Guild work was sold for guild prices. But anyone could knit and anyone could sell their work.
Irena Turnau's book is sadly out of print now. Even more sadly, it was very poorly translated, but the information is in there if you work at reading it carefully and are careful not to assume any connections that aren't specified. (The way the book is organized, just having one sentence follow another doesn't necessarily mean they are directly connected. I don't know whether that is the fault of her writing style or the fault of the translator.) A few libraries in the USA have it and I'm told that it can be found by Inter-Library Loan. It might be worth your time to try to get it to read. Irena Turnau: _History of Knitting Before Mass Production_ ISBN 83-900213-2-3 Warszawa 1991 A copy I saw had the library mark TT819.E85
=Tamar