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Common Jobs in a Medieval City

medievalists.net

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Re: Common Jobs in a Medieval City

#121

Post by hef19898 »

pessimizer wrote: post #120
hef19898 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And where generally closer to our modern day MDs then real mediaval MDs. As those where theologists coming from christian universities where they received basically zero true medical training.

Secular doctors were also terrible: before the late-19th century, seeing a doctor was more likely to shorten your lifespan than lengthen it. Unless you needed surgery, which meant that you were in serious trouble anyway, so even with the extreme likelihood of infection your odds were a bit better than just leaving it alone. As far as I can tell, before like 1880 they prescribed mercury for everything. Even though the…

Medival doctors seemd to be fairly good, for their time, when it came to broken bones and such. Basically battlefield injuries that didn't damage inner organs. I remeber when they discovered the bones of an English archer. That guy in hos forties had all kinds of broken bones, healed cuts to his bones and head... That and the Egyptian medics, and before, that drilled holes in heads to relieve pressure. Why know those surgeries where successfup because the bone healed on the skeletons we found. Also back the day people seemed to be not too bad when it came to healing properties of herbs.

But you are right, generally speaking you had the choice between really bad, utterly had, extremely bad and outright killing theit patients bad doctors for the most part of history.

Re: Common Jobs in a Medieval City

#123

Post by c54 »

automatic6131 wrote: post #108
c54 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ive heard the possibly apocryphal reason for this is that invading armies would kill or appropriate workers in other professions but keep around the trained blacksmiths working the forge and producing weapons and tools for war. Smiths survived the waves of conquerors.

Wouldn't be true for England which has gone the last millenia (almost) without invasion.

Duchies etc still changed hands quite frequently

Re: Common Jobs in a Medieval City

#124

Post by Nick87633 »

credit_guy wrote: post #98
dotancohen wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of extraordinary interest is the fact that the blacksmith made his own charcoal and presumably other consumables and tools. From whence his anvil? Would you mind sharing some more details, such as where was the village? This is exactly the type of history story that I enjoy telling my children. If you'd prefer to share privately, my Gmail username is the same as my HN username. Thank you!

I'm not sure if the blacksmith was making his own charcoal, or exchanging the wood for charcoal from someone who specialized in that. My Dad's village was about 250 km from this village [1] where people make charcoal even these days (one of the last remaining charcoal burning sites in the world). It's possible back in the day there were much more numerous such sites, so one would not have to travel far. But even if t…

Sounds like a wholesaler/retailer arrangement.

Re: Common Jobs in a Medieval City

#125

Post by TheCoelacanth »

dmurray wrote: post #50
qw wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The shoemakers also repaired and maintained shoes. They would replace soles, repair holes etc.

That's an argument for needing fewer people, not more - since it happens in situations where it's less labour-intensive to repair shoes than to make them from scratch.

Isn't the main reason that making from scratch is less labour-intensive than repairing because of mass production?

With medieval production methods, I would bet that making from scratch is significantly more labour-intensive than repairing.

Re: Common Jobs in a Medieval City

#126

Post by Eric_WVGG »

Xylakant wrote: post #15
MikeTaylor wrote: post #4

Striking that there were more shoemakers than tailors.

It's much easier to make clothes at home than shoes. I could probably cobble together an odd looking shirt given some time and instructions without needing to buy special tools, but leather shoes are an entirely different thing.

On a related note, this article reminded me of something one of my professors had to say about William Shakespeare.

There's a long tradition of conspiracy theorizing around Shakespeare, that he didn't actually write his own plays, that they were instead written by Francis Bacon or Queen Elizabeth or something ridiculous. These arguments usually start from his background: how could the son of a common glovemaker have gotten the sort of education necessary to write like this?

The thing is, glovemaker was a highly skilled profession. Exactly like you said, any dum dum could cut a hole in a sheet of fabric and call it a poncho, but handmade shoes and gloves take serious craftsmanship. This kind of profession would have put Shakespeare's family firmly in the upper-middle class.

Re: Common Jobs in a Medieval City

#127

Post by adamc »

kibwen wrote: post #79
stevenjgarner wrote: post #55

It surprises me that all 10 jobs still exist, while there are several more recent occupations that no longer exist (albeit they were not that common): Milkmen, Elevator operator, Switchboard Operator, Ice Cutter, Bowling Pin Setter, Film projectionist, Lamplighter, Leech collector, Alchemist, Bematist, Redsmith, Daguerreotypist, Town crier

See also The Lindy Effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect

Thanks for the link! Hadn't heard of that, although I've seen similar reasoning in other contexts. (Basically, the most reasonable estimate, absent other data, is that you are at the mean -- so, for example, one could reasonably guess that half the people to ever be born have been born at present.)

Re: Common Jobs in a Medieval City

#129

Post by zikduruqe »

irrational wrote: post #99
JackFr wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of extraordinary interest is the fact that the blacksmith made his own charcoal True. In medieval Europe charcoal burner was typically a very specialized profession. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charcoal_burner#Medieval_charc... "During the Middle Ages, charcoal burners were ostracised. Their profession was considered dishonourable and they were frequently accused of evil practices. Even today there is a certain d…

I always knew there was something off about all these Traeger enthusiasts.

Correct. They want to smoke meat using electricity, buttons and timers. Like an oven.

Give me an offset stick burner, that I have to fiddle with constantly. That is the proper art of smoking.

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