Jobs of the medieval city

Here's a neatly categorized and tantalizing list of medieval urban professions, including the criminal trades.

silk-snatcher - one who steals bonnets
stewsman - probably a brothel keeper - "since the words stew and stewholder both mean a bawd, I'm guessing that a stewsman would be a brothel-keeper as well. Whether bawdry counts as a criminal activity varies at different times and places."
thimblerigger - a professional sharper who runs a thimblerig (a game in which a pea is ostensibly hidden under a thimble and players guess which thimble it is under)
eggler - an egg-merchant
fool
Knifeman - one skilled with a knife; specifically, a soldier trained to disembowel horses

What did people do: in a Medieval City? (via Kottke)

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SomeGuyNamedMark

“Fool” is still a very popular profession.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  But they’ve switched from pratfalls to debates.
sweetcraspy

Brett Riverboat… Knifeman
mtdna

I feel so humiliated. I had no idea about any of this.
Signed, Stewsman Thimblerigger
EH

i’m a little surprised i’ve never come across anybody with the surname “eggler,” which would seem to be something that should exist.
- snowmentality
  
  I haven’t either, but Google says there’s quite a lot of Egglers about!
ryuchi

i bet fool is a fool-time job. i like doing it part time occasionally :P
LogrusZed

I’m surprised that “fool” lacks a description. I mean if you qualify you probably need one.
Timothy Krause

It’s interesting that thimblerigger is first recorded in the nineteenth century, according to the OED. So it technically wasn’t a job or professional term that they would have used in medieval times, or we’d have textual evidence of its having been used. Which is not to say that there weren’t plenty of rigged thimbles way back then: only that this term didn’t exist, and that this list could be more careful with its source material and philological methodology–as in, use a dictionary.
Matthew Elmslie

I don’t see anti-paladin/illusionist/druid on there.
- http://twitter.com/incarnedine_v Dan Hibiki
  
  Anti-Paladin? You mean Blackguard. That’s a prestige class.
  
  Illusionist is just a specialization for Wizards and Druids just suck. Don’t play druid.
  - LogrusZed
    
    I remember when Dragon came out with a stats-sheet/description for that class (late 70′s/early 80′s I think) and I’m almost certain it was listed as “Anti-Paladin”. Of course I could be mistaken as playing “Advanced” DnD and trying to figure out psionics may have given me permanent brain damage (and led to me and a lot of others heading towards GURPS and the like).
    
    Of course Anti-paladin is just as silly a term as “reverse-racism” in its application. You’re still a paladin, it’s just that you don’t service a “good” deity.
- http://nelc.livejournal.com/ NelC
  
  I was going to say that this reminded me of one of the old Judges Guild supplements for D&D. I don’t think they had anti-paladins back then. I’m not sure they had paladins, come to that….
http://twitter.com/incarnedine_v Dan Hibiki

Is Dwarf really an occupation, and does it pay over time?
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1093421395 Bippy Beardless
  
  No they get paid under the table.
http://twitter.com/BrooklynTARDIS Emily Ravich

If I had known about these, I would have never signed up for Apprentice Cathedral Carpenter in my fifth grade Medieval Trade Fair. (The big annual project for the grade.)
- jarmstrong
  
  Seriously. I was “Pookie the Serf”.
  - Ryan Lenethen
    
    Better Pookie the Serf than Pookie the Peon I suppose…
Danger Saurus

Something similar in a more useful form for rpgs, is S.J. Ross’s Medieval Demographics Made Easy, made into a simple form here:

http://www.rpglibrary.org/utils/meddemog/

The original essay is here:

http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/blueroom/demog.htm
Susan Carley Oliver

>>the words stew and stewholder both mean a bawd

Another good reason for making the change from stewardess, aka “stew”, to flight attendant.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  So if Prince Charles is the Great Steward of Scotland…?
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1093421395 Bippy Beardless

http://books.google.com/books?id=ayF3lcvG-dAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=inauthor:%22%C3%89tienne+Boileau%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=h60yT_86w6CJAq-L7YUK&ved=0CDgQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=inauthor%3A%22%C3%89tienne%20Boileau%22&f=false is a hideously long link to Etiienne Boileau’s ‘Livre des Metiers’ – the Book of Trades which is contemporary and much more interesting, (Though I couldn’t find a free translation online)