Medieval jobs • Page 3
This position is available for those artistic types who like living life at the sharp end. You will spend an age lovingly crafting a beautifully balanced weapon and then carefully painting and decorating it with intricate designs. Then a posh knight will smash it into thousands of pieces in moment.
Using an ash bow-lathe, you can create a lance handle in about half a day. Then the careful construction of the shaft can begin. By the precision placing of laminates, you will create the ultimate lance – one that can prise the opposition from their horse, but will also shatter on impact so as not to endanger the life of the knight. If you get the construction wrong and harm one of the medieval big cheeses, you can expect to pay with your life.
Large batch orders for lances are expected for international tournaments. Prissy types and those precious about their work need not apply.
For more about the lance, see Weapons that made Britain.
Are you a veritable lord of the rings with a strong inclination towards monotonous repetitive tasks? If so, this could be the ideal job for you.
Become hypnotised as you endlessly wrap heavy wire around a handy pole. Get sore and swollen fingers as you carefully snip the resultant 'spring' into tiny rings with overlapping ends. Try not to set yourself alight as you singe your pinkies heating the rings until they are orange hot. A careful tap-tapping over a miniscule anvil ensures the ring ends are uniformly flat. Then a neat sharp hammer-and-punch action creates tiny holes into which you can then insert an incy-wincy rivet to close the ring.
Then the real fun begins as you start to knit the rings together. Just complete the task 30,000 times and you will have a fine chain-mail (or maille) shirt fit for a king. Work from home.
If you've got some meat and a length of string, this could be just what you're looking for. As royal falconer, you'll be responsible for training birds worth more than you could possibly imagine.
If you were the sort of kid who never lost the family budgie, you could be made of the right stuff. The price you'll pay for losing one of the king's birds will be either the loss of your eyes or your hands or the cutting off of your own flesh equal to the weight of the bird.
The sport is extremely popular with the royals. In 1355, when Edward III and the Black Prince invade France, they take 30 falconers with them. Under Henry VII, stealing hawks' eggs from the king is punishable by imprisonment for a year and a day. His son Henry VIII builds an elaborate and very costly mews – hawk quarters – in London where the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square now stands, and the crest of wife no. 2, Anne Boleyn, is a falcon. And it is said of Mary Queen of Scots, who goes hawking with Protestant leader John Knox, that she 'would rather look at a bird on the wing than one on the board'.
After training and caring for your feathery charges, you'll need to bring along your dad to act as the cadger on hunting trips. Encouraging him to jog along wearing a wooden frame – the 'cadge' – covered in birds, you will also have to surmount various obstacles in your path as you try to keep up with the hunting party on their horses. Fitness is key, and if you perform well, you can earn a fortune.
Seeking a man or woman to produce the exclusive colour of royalty. As a purple maker, you will be following in a long line of dye makers that stretches back to the Phoenicians.
Massive quantities of shellfish – Murex trunculus, actually – and a large hammer will be provided. The operative will be required to smash the molluscs to smithereens in a large vat and then add water and ash to the swill. A patient nature would be advantageous as you will need to watch the stinking mixture for 10 days as it gradually decays and ferments into a kind of purple morass.
The finest cloth can then be dunked into the vat and left to absorb the fragrant dye fully. On removal and after natural oxidisation, you can marvel at the transformation of the cloth into the most attractive purple, exuding an aura of affluence.
Having no sense of smell would be a distinct benefit for any applicants.
If you're a bit of a loner, you may consider applying for this job. You can find yourself living in the depths of the countryside for days on end never seeing another soul.
But beware: all that solitude can be dangerous for your mental health. In 1476, the Bavarian shepherd Hans Boehm – known as the 'drummer of Niklashausen' – is executed after he claims that the Virgin Mary told him to be a preacher of repentance, that there is no place in heaven for nobles or the clergy, that taxes should be abolished and that all men should live as brothers.
As a shepherd, you'll need to be good at mathematics as counting sheep is part and parcel of the role. However, there's no sleeping on the job as the protection of your flock requires a sharp eye and an alert disposition. A waterproofed smock will be provided, together with a large umbrella-like portable shelter.
You'll need to be as strong as an ox to carry the hurdles needed to pen the sheep, and fairly dextrous as the plucking of poo winnets from around the sheep's genitals can be particularly intricate work.
Applicants will need their own crook for rescuing sheep and pinning them down when they start wriggling under water during the refreshing river-washing sessions.
