Can you list any medieval jobs ?

Question

any medieval jobs ?

Answer 1

Best Answer - Chosen by Voters

The following lists many occupations that prevailed during the Middle Ages. Even though the individuals who held the positions have long since disappeared, often leaving no record of their existence, their legacy is still very visible in modern surnames. See if you recognize them...

Almoners: ensured the poor received alms.
Atilliator: skilled castle worker who made crossbows.
Baliff: in charge of allotting jobs to the peasants, building repair, and repair of tools used by the peasants.
Barber: someone who cut hair. Also served as dentists, surgeons and blood-letters.
Blacksmith: forged and sharpened tools and weapons, beat out dents in armor, made hinges for doors, and window grills. Also referred to as Smiths.
Bottler: in charge of the buttery or bottlery.
Butler: cared for the cellar and was in charge of large butts and little butts (bottles) of wine and beer. Under him a staff of people might consist of brewers, tapsters, cellarers, dispensers, cupbearers and dapifer.
Carder: someone who brushed cloth during its manufacture.
Carpenter: built flooring, roofing, siege engines, furniture, panelling for rooms, and scaffoling for building.
Carters: workmen who brought wood and stone to the site of a castle under construction.
Castellan: resident owner or person in charge of a castle (custodian).
Chamberlain: responsible for the great chamber and for the personal finances of the castellan.
Chaplain: provided spirtual welfare for laborers and the castle garrison. The duties might also include supervising building operations, clerk, and keeping accounts. He also tended to the chapel.
Clerk: a person who checked material costs, wages, and kept accounts.
Constable: a person who took care (the governor or warden) of a castle in the absence of the owner. This was sometimes bestowed upon a great baron as an honor and some royal castles had hereditary constables.
Cook: roasted, broiled, and baked food in the fireplaces and ovens.
Cottars: the lowest of the peasantry. Worked as swine-herds, prison guards, and did odd jobs.
Ditcher: worker who dug moats, vaults, foundations and mines.
Dyer: someone who dyed cloth in huge heated vats during its manufacture.
Ewerer: worker who brought and heated water for the nobles.
Falconer: highly skilled expert responsible for the care and training of hawks for the sport of falconry.
Fuller: worker who shrinks & thickens cloth fibers through wetting & beating the material.
Glaziers: a person who cut and shaped glass.
Gong Farmer: a latrine pit emptier.
Hayward: someone who tended the hedges.
Herald: knights assistant and an expert advisor on heraldry.
Keeper of the Wardrobe: in charge of the tailors and laundress.
Knight: a professional soldier. This was achieved only after long and arduous training which began in infancy.
Laird: minor baron or small landlord.
Marshal: officer in charge of a household's horses, carts, wagons, and containers. His staff included farriers, grooms, carters, smiths and clerks. He also oversaw the transporting of goods.
Master Mason: responsible for the designing and overseeing the building of a structure.
Messengers: servants of the lord who carried receipts, letters, and commodities.
Miner: skilled professional who dug tunnels for the purpose of undermining a castle.
Minstrels: part of of the castle staff who provided entertainment in the form of singing and playing musical instruments.
Porter: took care of the doors (janitor), particularly the main entrance. Responsible for the guardrooms. The person also insured that no one entered or left the castle withour permission. Also known as the door-ward.
Reeve: supervised the work on lord's property. He checked that everyone began and stopped work on time, and insured nothing was stolen. Senior officer of a borough.
Sapper: an unskilled person who dug a mine or approach tunnel.
Scullions: responsible for washing and cleaning in the kitchen.
Shearmen: a person who trimmed the cloth during its manufacture.
Shoemaker: a craftsman who made shoes. Known also as Cordwainers.
Spinster: a name given to a woman who earned her living spinning yarn. Later this was expanded and any unmarried woman was called a spinster.
Steward: took care of the estate and domestic administration. Supervised the household and events in the great hall. Also referred to as a Seneschal.
Squire: attained at the age of 14 while training as a knight. He would be assigned to a knight to carry and care for the weapons and horse.
Watchmen: an official at the castle responsible for security. Assited by lookouts (the garrison).
Weaver: someone who cleaned and compacted cloth, in association with the Walker and Fuller.
Woodworkers: tradesmen called Board-hewers who worked in the forest, producing joists and beams.
Other medieval jobs included:
tanners, soap makers, cask makers, cloth makers, candle makers (chandlers), gold and silver smiths, laundresses

Source(s):

http://www.castles-of-britain.com/castle…

Answer 2

A Gongfarmer would clean the sewers.

Answer 3

god, I'm not gonna beat the answer above :D
but, a CHANDLER was a person who manufactured both soap and candles (by making lye etc.)

Answer 4

add prostitution to the above list

Answer 5

You seem to have a lot already, however here are a few more unusual ones.

The English term cordwainer, meaning shoemaker, first appears in 1100. By the late 13th century a distinction grew in England between Cordwainers. proper, called alutari, who used only alum "tawed" cordwain, and another class of shoemakers called basanarii, who employed an inferior "tanned" sheepskin which was prohibited for footwear apart from long boots.

"Fletcher" derives from this term, meaning "one who fletches." It is sometimes generally used for an arrow-maker, not only for someone restricted to this step of the process. The word is related to the French word flèche, meaning "arrow," via Old French; the ultimate root is Frankish *fliukka.

An Apothecarist was one trained and skilled in the arts of formal medicine.

Turnkey: Historically, the term once referred to jailers, as the holders of a prison's keys.

Traditionally, a cooper is someone who makes wooden staved vessels of a conical form, of greater length than breadth, bound together with hoops and possessing flat ends or heads. Examples of a cooper's work include but are not limited to casks, barrels, buckets, tubs, butter churns, hogsheads, firkins, tierces, rundlets, puncheons, pipes, tuns, butts, pins, and breakers.

Traditionally there were four divisions in the cooper's craft. The "dry" or "slack" cooper made containers that would be used to ship dry goods such as cereals, nails, tobacco, fruits and vegetables. The "drytight" cooper made casks designed to keep dry goods in and moisture out. Gunpowder and flour casks are examples of a "drytight" cooper's work. The "white cooper" made straight staved containers like washtubs, buckets and butter churns, that would hold water and other liquids, but did not allow shipping of the liquids. Usually there was no bending of wood involved in white cooperage. The "wet" or "tight" cooper made casks for long term storage and transportation of liquids that could even be under pressure, as with beer.

A scribe (or scrivener) is a person who writes books or documents by hand as a profession. The profession, previously found in all literate cultures in some form, lost most of its importance and status with the advent of printing. The work could involve copying books, including sacred texts, or secretarial and administrative duties such as taking of dictation and the keeping of business, judicial and historical records for kings, nobility, temples and cities. The word comes from Middle English scriveiner, an alteration of obsolete scrivein, from Anglo-French escrivein, ultimately from Vulgate Latin *scriban-, scriba, alteration of Latin scriba (as scribe).

Answer 6

a Bard?

Answer 7

Accomptent, barrister, bath attendant, water carrier, doctor, copyist, plumber, lutemaker, lorimer, liner, cutter, diamantire-diamond cutter, founder, furniture maker, gravedigger, worist and lacework.