Heroes and professions in The Sims Medieval. Prestigious professions of the past centuries Professions of the Middle Ages

One of the problems of historical art history, according to the researcher of medieval musical culture M. Saponov, is the limitation of the study of the Middle Ages to the official sphere - scholarly and church music. Purely "the Christian Middle Ages is a legend," asserts the French scientist J. Delyumau. In the spiritual culture of society, official (religious) and unofficial (secular) traditions coexisted. It is the secular folk culture that makes it possible to present all aspects of medieval life. The evidence of the diversity of the latter is the literature of the 12-13 centuries, where there is an abundance of data about the most diverse musical traditions of medieval life: folk music, rural, palace, tower, military, tournament, home music.

For the first time, household music of the Middle Ages was described and systematized in the treatise “ De musica"Joanna de Groceio... In it, the author distinguishes three types of music:

Church music is a tradition of Gregorian singing, regulated by the norms of liturgical practice and recorded in the rules of the Roman Catholic Church.

Scientific music (canonica) following the rules, ordered (regularis) - the author's professional creativity, in the mainstream of which the techniques of composing technique are developed.

Popular(cantus publicus)or household music(musica vulgaris, musica simplex, musica civilis).

B

Minstrel professionalism

living cantus publicus characterizes the oral tradition. It sounded at festivals, feasts, at courts. This is not folklore or the works of clerics; these are products of special professionalism - minstrel , based on oral skills and original poetics. Moreover, oral speech is not just one of the ways of transmitting information, but a sign of the special state of artistic culture at a certain stage of its development.

In the written sources of the XII-XV centuries, there are various definitions of the carriers of artistic professionalism: the words "juggler", "spielman", "minstrel" are used, and they are used in the same range of meanings. So in Chrétien de Trois 25, even within the same scene, musicians are sometimes called jugglers, sometimes minstrels.

Juggler(French jongleur, from Latin joculator) translated means a joker and this word denoted wandering comedians and musicians in medieval France. Sometimes they were called histrions... In Germany they are related spielmans, in Russia - buffoons... Word minstrel comes from the Latin menestrallus, derived from mestier - "skill", "craft", "profession". And, perhaps, it is this term that is most logical to use as a defining concept for the artistic professions of the Middle Ages, which constitute the basis of medieval folk culture and represent a stable professional tradition.

M. Saponov combines the main varieties of minstrel artistic professionalism into 4 groups:

Spectacular and circus professionalism (acrobats, equilibrists, tightrope walkers, illusionists, trainers, dancers and dancers.

Professionalism of singing poets accompanying themselves on string instruments.

The professionalism of instrumental minstrels, who mastered the playing of several instruments, as well as the skills of ensemble playing music.

Synthetic, intermediate forms of professionalism based on blended, inter-craft skills.

The genre sphere, which characterizes the professional activity of singing poets, in Groceio's treatise is summarized in the concept cantus publicus. Groceio cantus publicus differ in two ways: "they are performed either with a voice or on made musical instruments." “Those [forms] that are sung differ in two ways. We call them either edging or chanson ... We divide both edging and chanson in three ways. We refer to Kant either gesture, or decorated (crowned) singing, or verse, and to chanson - either rondel or duction. "

WITHantus publicus

Vocal s.r. Instrumental s.r.

Kant Chanson

Rondel's gestures

Ornamented singing Duktsia

Couplet singing

Let us briefly explain each of the genres mentioned by Grokeio.

Gestures- singing of the heroic epic and storytelling stories close to it.

Ornamented singing –cantus-coronatus– exquisite-virtuoso style with improvised diminutions 26.

Couplet singing- syllabically distinct unassuming cantus-versiculatus (stanza).

Group chanson(cantilena). Rondel ("like a circle in itself closes in") obeys a strict norm: his melody and rhymes should be fully stated already in the refrain, without further changing in the stanza. The stamp, like the duction, is freer; the melody of the stanza and its rhymes are not obliged to follow the refrain in everything. “Refrain is what every chanson begins and ends with. The additions differ in the rondel, in the duction and in the print. In the rondel, they coincide with the refrain in the melody and rhyme. In duction and printmaking, some are different, while others are the same melodic and rhyme. "

Chanson de carole- a song with a dance. Another name for the duction is dance chanson.

In female occupations in the Middle Ages

Original article -

Translation - Claire, specially for Sochinitel.ru

Housewife, midwife, prostitute. Sometimes it seems that these are the only female archetypes in fantasy with a medieval entourage, unless you have warriors clad in bikini armor with swords more than their own weight.
So, apart from producing children, what were women actually doing? As always with fantasy, the author doesn't have to stick strictly to the facts, but a little logic never hurts to build the world. To help extrapolate the role of women in the Middle Ages to your fantasy world, this article aims to give you a basic understanding of why a situation is often drawn the way it is. The first thing worth paying attention to is ...

Childbirth is really hard

Ask your mom. Ask any mom. Then ask them what it is like without an epidural.
Thanks to modern medicine, having a baby today gives you a much lower chance of bleeding and infection, not to mention pain relievers. If you look at it relatively, then this is a couple of trifles. And, nevertheless, any mother will tell you that there is nothing easy in this.
In addition to the severity of childbirth itself, it's important to remember that birth control (1960s) revolutionized women's lives. Suddenly, they could choose not to breed. Previously, the jobs women were hired were often limited by how much they could do while pregnant or with a baby. One has only to ask a modern parent on maternity leave how much he manages to do during the day, and remember that before the 1950s this parent should have to be a mother, since only she could feel the child. But of course ...

There were exceptions to the rule

The infertile, post-menopausal, celibate, and others who were wealthy enough to rely only on nannies - all of them could engage in professional activities. But remember, when you inhabit your world, that these are exceptions. If most of your female character's time is not in reproductive activity, there must be a reason.
In addition to people with a vocation to religion, monasteries provided refuge for women, intellectuals and dissidents. Approximately 10% of all women in medieval France and England never married, and “marriage with God” provided many of them with a place to live and an education that was not otherwise available. Women writers, artists, and theologians were raised by the church, as were botanists, healers, and teachers. The medieval church was a major economic enterprise, and the abbess of a large monastery was a force to be reckoned with.

Executioner in a medieval German city

A city in the medieval civilization of Western Europe. T. 3.
A man inside the city walls. Forms of public relations. - M .: Nauka, 1999, p. 223-231.

The figure of the city executioner, familiar to many from descriptions in fiction, became the subject of attention of historians much less often than, say, many of those who had to experience the skill of the masters of the rack and scaffold.

Below is an attempt, first, to give some general information about executioners in the cities of Central Europe - about the history of the emergence and existence of this profession, about the functions of executioners and their position in the urban community; secondly, to find out how and in connection with what that ambiguous and permeated with different-time trends attitude towards the figure of the executioner developed and changed, the echo of which is the disgusting and fearful disgust that has survived to this day.

The executioner is not mentioned in medieval sources until the 13th century. The professional position of the executioner did not yet exist. In the era of the early and high Middle Ages, the court, as a rule, established the conditions for reconciliation between victims and offenders (more precisely, those who were recognized as such): the victim of a crime or her relatives received compensation ("wergeld") that corresponded to her social status and the nature of the offense ...

The death penalty and many other corporal punishment were thus replaced by the payment of a certain amount of money. But even if the court sentenced the accused to death, it was not the executioner who carried out the sentence. In the old Germanic law, the death penalty was initially carried out jointly by all those who tried the offender, or the execution of the sentence was entrusted to the youngest assessor, either the plaintiff or an accomplice of the convicted person. Often the convicted person was entrusted to the bailiff, whose duties, according to the "Saxon Mirror", included maintaining order during court hearings: summoning the participants in the trial and witnesses to court, delivering messages, confiscating property by sentence, and executing sentences, although from the source text it was not it is clear whether he had to do it himself or just oversee the execution.

In the late Middle Ages, the authorities became more actively involved in criminal proceedings. The imperial legislation that established universal peace could not have ensured an end to blood feud, civil strife and other violent acts if the public authorities did not present an alternative to private violence in the form of corporal criminal punishment. Now the crimes were investigated not only on the basis of the claims of the victims, but also on the own initiative of the one who owned the jurisdiction in the area: the inquisitorial process came to replace the accusation process, i.e. one in which the law enforcement agencies took it upon themselves to initiate a criminal case, conduct an investigation, and arrest suspects.

No longer relying on formalistic evidence, traditional in the early Middle Ages, such as the oath of purification or the ordeal ("judgment of God"), the judicial authorities began to investigate the circumstances of the crimes and interrogate the accused in order to obtain a confession. In this regard, torture has become an integral part of the criminal justice system. In the XIII century, i.e. long before the influence of the reception of Roman law began to affect (the end of the 15th century), in Germany, in addition to new legal procedures, more complex corporal punishment was spread, which became typical of criminal proceedings throughout the early modern period, displacing the wergeld as a form retribution for the crime.

Although hanging and chopping off the head remained the most common types of execution, wheeling, burning at the stake, burial alive, and drowning began to find widespread use. These executions could be intensified by additional tortures to which the convicts were subjected to the place of execution or on the way to it: scourging, branding, amputation of limbs, piercing with red-hot rods, etc. These new procedural rules were the result of the desire of the public authorities to pacify society by concentrating a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence in their hands. Thus, in the 13th century, in connection with the new regulation of corporal punishment and the death penalty under the law on peace in the country (Landfriedengesetz), there was a constant need to carry out more and more various tortures and executions that required already known qualifications - and then professional executioners appeared for public service. But the monopoly on the execution of death sentences was secured for them only by the end of the 16th century.

A new type of criminal justice was established first of all in cities.On the one hand, maintaining peace and order in the urban environment was a very urgent task, on the other hand, city authorities with their ramified bureaucracy and well-established routine management techniques could more easily master new judicial procedures than territorial states. Empires that lagged behind them in the process of forming the administrative machine. For the first time in German sources, we find a mention of a professional executioner in the code of city law ("Stadtbuch" of the free imperial city of Augsburg in 1276). Here he appears before us as a municipal employee with clearly defined rights and responsibilities.

First of all, the laws of the city establish the executioner's monopoly on the execution of death sentences and "all corporal punishment."

Upon taking office, the executioner entered into the same contract and took the same oath as other officials who were subordinate to the city authorities - depending on the status of the city, either to its council or to the lord; from them he received a salary, an apartment and other allowances on an equal basis with all other city employees. His work was paid according to the rate established by the authorities: for each execution on the gallows or on the chopping block, he had to receive five shillings (this is data from the Agusburg laws, but the rate in different cities and at different times was different). In addition, the executioner got everything that was worn on the convict below the waist - this tradition continued over the next centuries. When, with age or after illness, the executioner became too weak to do his job, he could resign and receive a life pension. At the same time, for the first time he had to help the master who came to his place with "good advice and faithful instruction," as was customary in all other posts in the municipal administration. In many cities, where there was a uniform for municipal employees, it also relied on the executioner. But the masks or caps with slits for the eyes, which are often seen in historical novels and films, are not mentioned anywhere in the late medieval sources.

So, the executioner was a professional executioner and torture. But since, apart from the extraordinary cases of mass repressions, this work did not take all of his time, and also did not bring income for which one could subsist, the executioner, in addition to his main occupation, carried out other functions in the city economy.

First, the supervision of urban prostitutes. The executioner was in fact the keeper of a brothel, made sure that women behaved in accordance with the rules established for them by the authorities, dealt with conflicts that arose between them and the citizens. Prostitutes were required to pay him two pfennigs every Saturday, and the executioner did not have to "demand more." Prostitutes who did not have permission to live in the city or were expelled for breaking the rules, he had to expel from the city, as, by the way, and lepers - for this he was paid five shillings each time the city taxes were collected.

The executioner seems to have retained the function of the owner of the brothel throughout the 14th century, and in many cities and the 15th century. Thus, in the Bavarian city of Landsberg, this practice continued until 1404, when the executioner was fired for taking part, together with his charges, in beating up a rival who did not have permission to practice his craft in this city. In Regensburg, the brothel, which was run by the executioner, was located in the immediate vicinity of his home, and in some other cities prostitutes lived right in the executioner's house, such as in Munich, until the Duke of Bavaria ordered in 1433 to arrange a municipal brothel for them. to which they moved in 1436. In Strasbourg, the executioner supervised not only the business of the "priestesses of love", but also the gambling house, having from this also some income. In 1500 he was removed from this duty, but as compensation he was supposed to receive a weekly supplement from the city treasury.

In the city of Memmingen, the authorities at the beginning of the 15th century. hired a special person to be the owner of a brothel, but he also regularly paid the executioner a certain amount. In Augsburg, the executioner was already in the XIV century. was not the only one who controlled prostitution: sources mention a bander named Rudolfina; by the end of the 15th century. the function of the owner of the municipal brothel was finally transferred there to a special official. Similarly, in other cities, gradually, starting from the middle of the 15th century. and especially after the Reformation, when brothels in Protestant regions were closed for religious and ethical reasons, the executioners were deprived of this position, and with it the source of income, which was replaced by an increase in salary.

The second widespread function of the executioner in the cities was the cleaning of public latrines: it remained with him until the end of the 18th century.

In addition, the executioners were flayers, they caught stray dogs, removed carrion from the city, etc., if there was no special employee in the municipal apparatus who would specially deal with this. The flayers, in turn, were often assistants to the executioners in their work on the place of execution (during the execution of sentences and the subsequent cleaning of the place of execution), and they were also entitled to a certain payment for this. Often, representatives of these two professions - as well as gravediggers - were linked by relationships of property, for they, as a rule, could not find a groom or a bride among "honest" people. Thus, whole dynasties of executioners arose, serving in one or neighboring cities.

There are also mentions of rather unexpected - after all of the above - functions: for example, in Augsburg, according to the aforementioned 1276 code of customary law, they were entrusted with the protection of grain laid on the market. In early modern times, after the construction of a grain exchange in the city, sacks of grain began to be stored in it and were guarded by special servants.

Some other trades of the executioners will be discussed below, but now we will emphasize that with all the diversity of their labor and sources of income, they were primarily officials in the service of local authorities, state (municipal) employees. It should be borne in mind that these words did not mean "bureaucrat-manager", but only indicated that the person worked under an agreement with the state, serving state needs. At the same time, the specialty could be very different - from a lawyer or a clerk to gold or, as in our case, "back" cases of a master. The fact that his work consisted of torturing and killing people did not change anything in this status: realizing himself as a servant of the state and an instrument in the hands of the law, the executioner, according to his own formulation of one representative of this profession, “executed some unfortunate people with death for their atrocities and a crime by praiseworthy imperial law. "

The collisions that arose in connection with the executioners could be completely the same type as those that happened in connection with, for example, customs or other institutions with questionable subordination. So, for example, after the Bamberg executioner Hans Beck asked the Council for resignation and received it, the new executioner Hans Spengler, who arrived from another city, took the oath not to the city Council, but to the prince-bishop (more precisely, his minister). After that, he received from Beck the keys to the house "where the executioners have always lived" and moved into it without the knowledge of the Council. When the burgomasters asked him if he would swear allegiance to them (especially since he had already served this city), he replied that he would not. On this basis, they refused to pay him a salary from the city treasury and to give him a uniform, like other officials employed in the field of justice and law enforcement.

The prince-bishop of Bamberg summoned the burgomasters to him for explanations, and they argued their decision as follows: "the former princes-bishops did not prevent the Council of the city of Bamberg from hiring an executioner, if necessary, who was obliged (i.e. swore allegiance) only to him and to no one more, therefore, he was paid a salary from the city treasury.According to the new law on criminal proceedings, the prince-bishop took this right from the city and left it exclusively to himself. he promised to preserve for the Bamberzhians their primordial rights.If the executioner now has nothing to do with the Council, and the latter will nevertheless pay him a salary, especially since both frontal places, for execution with a sword and for hanging (if I may say so under Their Princely Grace), erected and maintained from communal funds, then the Council cannot be held accountable to citizens for such a thing. "

Performing jobs such as torture and execution required not only adequate equipment and great physical strength, but also a fair amount of knowledge of anatomy and practical skill. Indeed, in one case it was necessary to inflict more or less severe suffering on the person being interrogated, but at the same time not to kill him and not to deprive him of the ability to think and speak; in the other, if no burden of execution was determined by the court, the executioner had to kill the convicted person as quickly as possible and without unnecessary torment. Since the executions were a mass action, the reaction of the people had to be taken into account: for an unsuccessful blow, the executioner could be torn to pieces by the crowd, therefore, according to, for example, Bamberg legislation, before each execution, the judge proclaimed that no one, on pain of punishment, corporal and property, should not the executioner to fix any obstacle, and if he fails to hit, then no one dares to raise a hand against him.

Such abilities could be acquired only in the course of special training: a person who decided to become an executioner (whether because his father was engaged in this business, or in order to avoid criminal punishment), first took over his science from the senior master, working with him as an assistant, and in order to become a master himself, he had to perform a "masterpiece" - to behead the condemned well. The customs, as we can see, are the same as in other crafts. In the literature, there is information about shop-like corporations in which the executioners united, although I did not come across information about those: perhaps it was they who supervised the quality of the work of the newcomers.

Many categories of civil servants, in addition to executing orders from their superiors, provided services to individuals and corporations on a completely legitimate basis, receiving some established payment for this. With regard to executioners, this principle was implemented in a slightly different way: in view of the monopoly of public power on legal proceedings and the execution of punishments, only she could instruct the master to perform torture or execution. Therefore, the "customers" were not individuals or corporations, but the justice authorities - local courts of various instances - although the executioner's services were paid partly by the treasury, and partly by the accusing party in the process (if the local authorities did not act as such). On orders from the population, the executioners carried out a number of other trades, which they were engaged in as private individuals and with which the state did not have and did not want to have anything in common, and sometimes even tried to suppress them.

So, the executioners traded in parts of corpses and various drugs prepared from such: they were attributed various healing properties, they were used as amulets. Moreover, quite often the executioners practiced as healers: they could diagnose and treat internal diseases and injuries no worse, and often better than other specialists in this field - bath attendants, barbers, even medical scientists.

Since the executioner had a lot to do with the human body in its various states, he, as a result of long-term observations, could acquire considerable experience in the methods of analyzing the state of its organs. Of course, this knowledge was not acquired during torture and execution, it required a separate special study of the human body: the position of the executioners had the advantage that they had unlimited legal access to corpses, which they could dissect for cognitive purposes, while doctors for a long time time they were deprived of such a right - for anatomical studies, they secretly bought corpses from the same executioners. Fighting serious competition, doctors regularly demanded that the authorities ban the executioners from medical practice. These efforts, however, were generally not crowned with long-term success: the reputation of the "shoulder masters" as good healers was high, and their clients included representatives of the nobility, who themselves sabotaged the bans issued by the authorities in which they sat.

In addition to somatic medicine, which was used by the executioners, they were also exorcists. The very idea of ​​torture or execution in the Middle Ages is connected with this function: by means of influence on the body, expel the evil spirit that prompted a person to commit a crime. The art of inflicting suffering on the body, which would not kill a person, but would allow his soul to free itself from the demon's power, had its application outside the criminal process, in medical practice.

This last proposition brings us to the question of the position of the executioner in urban society, of the attitude towards him of those who coexisted with him in the narrow space of the city and was potentially a candidate for his patients or victims.

Despite the fact that the executioner was an official, his persona did not enjoy sufficient immunity, and he was entitled to security when he walked around the city or beyond. We constantly read about the "danger to life" to which they are exposed in petitions from executioners and profos. Obviously, attacks on the person or on the life of the executioner were not uncommon. In Bamberg, the one who summoned the executioner (if his services were required on the territory of the bishopric, but outside the city of Bamberg), contributed a certain amount as a guarantee that he would return safe and sound. In Augsburg, for some reason, the executioners considered the time when the Reichstags were passing there especially dangerous for themselves. Perhaps the fact was that many strangers came (in particular, armed soldiers) and the situation in the city became somewhat anemic. Among the most likely targets in the event of outbreaks of violence were, apparently, representatives of the social lower classes, the marginalized, and primarily those who aroused fear and hatred.

The question of whether the executioners belong to the category of "dishonest" is rather complicated and controversial. The situation was somewhat ambiguous in this sense. On the one hand, the various functions of the executioner were associated with dirty, humiliating and "dishonorable" (unehrlich) activities, which clearly indicates his low status. And in public opinion in many regions of Europe, the executioner was put on a par with other despised and persecuted social groups: Jews, buffoons, vagabonds, prostitutes (the latter were called "varnde freulin", literally - "vagrant girls") - and thus, although lived permanently in one place, were equated in status with vagabonds. Dealing with them was unacceptable for "honest" people, therefore, supervision was entrusted to the executioner as a status figure close to them.

But in medieval normative texts, strange as it may seem, the executioner was never explicitly counted among "dishonest" people and nowhere do we find indications of restrictions on his legal capacity or other discrimination that are observed in relation to "disenfranchised people" (rechtlose lewte) in such codes like the Saxon and Swabian "Mirrors". In the list of Augsburg city law in 1373, the executioner is called a "whore's son" (der Hurensun der Henker), but even here we do not see any legal consequences arising from this low status.

Only at the end of the Middle Ages and at the very beginning of the early modern era, in the legal norms of other cities and territories of the Empire, we find examples of restrictions on the legal capacity of executioners associated with their dishonor. One of the earliest examples of this is the regulation issued in Strasbourg in 1500: here the executioner is ordered to behave modestly, to give way to honest people on the street, not to touch any products on the market other than those that he is going to buy, to stand in the church in a specially designated place, in taverns, do not approach the citizens of the city and other honest people, do not drink or eat near them. In Bamberg, according to the new law (beginning of the 16th century), the executioner was not supposed to drink in any house except his dwelling, and he should not play anywhere and with anyone, he should not have any "poor daughter" (that is, a servant working for grub), except for her own, should not be grumpy, but be “with people and everywhere” peaceful. In the church, the executioner was ordered to stand behind the door; when distributing the sacrament, he was the last to approach the priest. He, as a rule, was not excommunicated (although this was also practiced in some regions), but was placed on the very edge of the community - literally and figuratively.

This regulation of the behavior, movement and location of the executioner, in all likelihood, was not an absolute innovation: it most likely reflected the notions of the ought that existed before. With a certain caution, we can assume that to a large extent it acted as an unwritten law in the 15th century, and maybe even earlier, but there is no documentary evidence of this at our disposal at the moment, so the most that can be argued - this is that at the end of the Middle Ages, apparently, the mood intensified, separating the executioner from the rest of society and bringing him closer to other representatives of marginalized crafts, which was reflected in the change in legislation.

The nature of the regulation to which the executioner's behavior was subjected during this period is interesting. It, as you can see, was very detailed (which, incidentally, is generally characteristic of the era of "ordinances" and "regulations"), and it was aimed not only at strengthening discipline, but, in my opinion, also - or primarily - to prevent potentially dangerous contacts of the executioner with "honest" people. We see that many norms are designed to exclude the very possibility of a conflict with his participation. The point here was, on the one hand, in the fact that, as mentioned above, the executioner could very easily become a victim of affective actions, on the other hand, in the fact that other people had to be afraid of him. With his witchcraft skills (from which one step to witchcraft), he could greatly harm the offender; moreover, the mere touch of the "dishonorable" was in itself dishonorable. Anyone who was tortured or on the scaffold, even if he was later acquitted or pardoned, almost never could recover his good time, because he was in the hands of the executioner. Even an accidental touch, especially a blow or a curse received from an executioner on the street or in a tavern, would be fatal to honor - and therefore to the entire fate of a person.

This situation, however, did not suit the authorities, who soon began to actively "return" marginalized groups to the bosom of an honest society: laws were issued that canceled legal restrictions for representatives of crafts that were considered dishonorable until then, as well as for Jews and other outcasts of society. There is evidence that at the beginning of early modern times the executioner - at least in Augsburg - could already have citizenship rights: two petitions, written by a notary, were signed by a "burgher". Moreover, they say that the City Council assured the executioner Veith Stolz "of all mercy and benevolence." On one of the petitions, the burgomaster personally gave the answer to the executioner.

We see, therefore, that the executioners simultaneously existed in the sphere of relations, from a Weberian point of view, rational (service) and irrational: they were an instrument of justice and engaged in semi-witchcraft practices, were a constant target of affective actions and were generally a heavily mythologized figure, although themselves often emphasized the purely natural, artisan nature of their activities, whether it be work on the scaffold or medicine.

The set of terms denoting the executioner, for example, in the German language of the late Middle Ages and early modern times, is an excellent illustration of what connotations were associated with this figure in the views of contemporaries: Scharfrichter, Nachrichter, Henker, Freimann, Ziichtiger, Angstmann, Meister Hans, Meister Hammerling - these different names reflect different aspects of his social, legal and cultural status. He is an instrument of justice (of the same root with the words "court", "judge"), he is the one who is given the right to kill "freely", the one who "punishes", the one who is "feared", and the "master" .e. artisan. The name "Master Hemmerling", by the way, is also found in the folklore of the miners, where it refers to a mysterious creature that lives underground. In astrology, the executioners had the same zodiac sign as the blacksmiths - both were people, through work with fire and iron associated with chthonic forces.

On the border of these two areas, a kind of "diffusion" took place, that is, irrational mass ideas about the place of the executioner in the community and about the behavior appropriate to him and in relation to him, were partially adopted into a normative, more rationalized sphere, followed by a reaction, and the rationalizing force of state power tried to "disenchant" and rehabilitate the figure of the executioner, which, however, did not succeed to the end, so that the moods against which the laws of the 16th century were directed have survived to this day.

LITERATURE

Conrad H. Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte. Karlsruhe, 1962. Vol. 1: Frilhzeit und Mittelalter.
Dulmen R. van. Theater of Horror: Crime and Punishment in Early Modem Germany. Cambridge. 1990.
Keller A. Der Scharfrichter in der deutschen Kulturgeschichte. Bonn; Leipzig, 1921.
Schattenhofer M. Hexen, Huren und Henker // Oberbayerisches Archiv. 1984. Bd. 10.
Schmidt E. Einfiihrung in die Geschichte der deutschen Strafrechtspflege. Gottingen. 1951.
Schuhmann H. Der Scharfrichter: Seine Gestalt - Seine Funktion. Kempten, 1964.
Stuart K.E. The Boundaries of Honor: "Dishonorable People" in Augsburg, 1500-1800. Cambridge, 1993.
Zaremska A. Niegodne rzemioslo: Kat w spotoczenstwe Polski w XIV-XV st. Warszawa. 1986.

“All professions are needed, all professions are important,” so the woman who was responsible for the maintenance of the chamber pots of the king and his entourage must have soothed herself. The pronounced social inequality and the way of life in general gave rise to a wide variety of at least strange positions during Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Now they seem wild, but then they were quite ordinary, and some even honorable.

1. Whipping boy

In the XV-XVI centuries in England, a whipping boy was assigned to each prince. Only the monarch himself could punish the king's son, but due to the fact that he was rarely near, his deputy received slaps and other joys for the naughty prince. It was assumed that the monarch's offspring became ashamed, because instead of him the innocent suffered. Sometimes work in this specialty brought considerable profits. For example, King Charles I, ascending to the throne, promoted his whipping boy William Murray to the earl.

2. Felt

In ancient Rome (and in medieval Europe as well), fabric for the further manufacture of clothing was processed in a very original way. Felt for days stood in a tub filled with water and alkaline chemicals, and tirelessly trampled strips of matter, removing excess substances. It would seem nothing special, but there is a nuance. Standing urine was the most readily available alkaline solution. The felt-makers collected it from the neighboring farms, and also put up special containers near their houses so that passers-by would replenish supplies.

3. Court stylist

How hard life was felted, the ancient Roman maidservants, who owned the technique of hair styling, knew best of all. Not only did they make curls on the heads of their mistresses for several hours in a row, they also dealt with ingredients that were difficult to process. They made hairsprays from a mixture of rotten leeches, squid ink, pigeon droppings and, of course, urine.

4. Leech Collector

If we are already talking about leeches, we cannot ignore another wonderful profession. The more doctors strengthened their belief in the healing properties of bloodletting, the more popular were leeches. They were considered a panacea for almost any disease. Accordingly, the profession of collecting these creatures has come into vogue. Usually they used their own legs as bait. Specialists roamed the swampy ponds, unhooking leeches from their ankles as they drank blood. Nothing complicated! True, from time to time the catchers lost consciousness due to the profuse loss of blood.

5. The corpse thief

Doctors needed not only leeches, but also corpses to study how everything works there. And in the old days, the church did not allow an autopsy. Therefore, negligent people hunted by the fact that under cover of night, by order of a doctor they knew, they exhumed the bodies of deceased compatriots. This profession existed until the end of the 19th century and caused violent protests.

6. The right woman and the courtier at the ship

A team of professionals looked after the English autocrats to empty their intestines in comfortable conditions. A specially trained woman at any time of the day or night was ready to throw out the contents of the pot and rinse it thoroughly. No career growth, but they paid well.

Much more prestigious was the position of courtier at the royal ship. It was founded by Henry VI when he had a novelty at his disposal - a chair with a built-in pot. The courtier everywhere carried the prototype of the toilet for His Majesty, was responsible for the availability of water and towels. To be always ready, he followed the monarch's diet, predicting his schedule and planning his day accordingly. The chair manager had almost uninterrupted and, in fact, intimate access to the king, which automatically elevated him above almost all other courtiers.

7. Armpit plucker

The desire to get rid of excess body hair is not at all a new trend. Smooth skin was considered an essential attribute of a handsome man in ancient Rome. Aristocrats trusted their servants to control the cleanliness of armpits and other areas of the body. Most often they wielded bronze tongs, but sometimes they also resorted to alternative methods. For example, they smeared the armpits with special substances in the hope that the hair would fall out by itself.

The late Middle Ages are considered the classic era of the formation and flowering of professional activities. It was during this period that many professions appeared that have retained their unique features up to the present time. Their spread throughout the world unambiguously indicates the dominance of the Western type of economy. However, the institutionalization of professional activity in the classical era of the Middle Ages was preceded by a rather long preparatory period, referred to by historians as the early Middle Ages, when Europe of the V-XII centuries. was subordinated to the principles of natural economy.

Division of Labor in the Early Middle Ages

In the period between the decline of ancient civilization and the emergence of handicraft workshops, which lasted approximately seven centuries, the agrarian economy dominated almost everywhere in the Western European part of the continent. In a sense, there was a rollback to natural forms of economic management, but it would be wrong to assume that all the achievements of the ancient era were lost and European civilization began its victorious development from scratch. Diverse knowledge in the field of agriculture and production has been preserved by the former colonies of Rome. Of course, the social structure, culture, as well as the geographical position adapted the achievements of Antiquity to the conditions of the early medieval economy, so we can say that throughout Europe there was a development of its own distinctive economy.

It's important to know

The early stage of the Middle Ages was characterized by a communal way of life, family production was organized by kinship or neighboring groups. Together it was easier to cultivate the land, confront nature and enemies, and preserve the collective whole. For this reason, in the communities of that time, we do not find any form of social division of labor.

Handicraft and agricultural labor, as a rule, was carried out by one farm as the need arose. The distribution of this activity was very arbitrary and was determined by the change of seasons. In the spring, summer and autumn periods, work was mainly related to agriculture (deforestation for sown areas, land cultivation, gardening and gardening, sowing, watering, harvesting and procurement of provisions). In winter, the peasants were mainly engaged in handicrafts (production and repair of implements, repair of houses and storage facilities). Thus, handicraft and agricultural production acted as a single family or household.

Labor was a natural attribute of everyday life uniting all members of the community. Due to the fact that the household was a self-sufficient and self-organized production, where labor functions were distributed among family members according to their leadership, abilities and capabilities, there was no point in the professionalization of labor.

At that time, labor was divided according to gender and age. Male labor is productive labor. Its content was determined by its goal - the production of a semi-finished product that cannot be consumed in full measure by family members immediately. He needed additional processing, which seemed to be the functions of women and children. The main worker - a man - as a more developed person, first of all physically, cultivated the land, sowed the fields, and reaped the harvest. Further, the task of the woman was the final refinement of the product produced by the man, the creation of such a product that could be directly consumed by family members. It is this distribution of responsibilities that is characteristic of the patriarchal type of family.

The patriarchal family was focused on self-sufficiency, which eliminated the need to develop productive potential and produce more than is necessary to meet life's needs.

Scientist opinion

"How much he consumes, so much should be produced; how much he spends, so much he should come in. First, expenses are given, and incomes are determined according to them. I call this form of farming expenditure farming ... This is the idea that every peasant family should receive as much manor land, as much arable land, as much of the communal pasture and communal forest as she needs to feed herself. "

In order for productivity to begin to grow and specialization to appear, changes were needed in the very way of life, the transformation of the principles of management. This became possible due to the consolidation of the land ownership of the communities and the feudalization of socio-economic relations. In the VI-VII centuries. the communal foundations are replaced by fiefdoms.

Historical excursion

"It concentrated in itself all the funds necessary for the implementation of large land ownership (economic function), rent collection and non-economic coercion (social function). The patrimony, that is, a complex of large land property, was divided into the master's part - the domain - and land, The domain included the seigneur's estate (residential and office buildings), forest, meadows and seigneurial plowing, the size of which depended on the forms of rent, as well as on the economic activity of the feudal lord ... , organizing simple cooperation in corvee work, clearing and internal colonization of land, the introduction of new economic methods and cultures. At the same time, it ensured to a certain extent the economic stability of the peasant economy, guaranteeing it protection from state extortions and personal security and under the patronage of the seigneur in conditions of feudal fragmentation " ...

Community peasants always had to be ready to defend their lands. But the combination of labor and military activity was extremely difficult. With the spread of the patrimonial system, the function of protecting lands becomes the prerogative of the feudal army. From among the peasants, who, for example, like the ancient Germans, received freedom, military detachments were formed to defend the land and serve the feudal lord throughout almost their entire life. At the disposal of each lord, depending on the size of the fief, there were up to several hundred vassals. It was they who became the representatives of the first established military profession in the early Middle Ages.

The warriors of the feud were constantly required to be in good physical shape, high organization and morale. The feudal lord had to take care of military readiness, high-quality equipment and a satisfactory diet of the soldiers. Therefore, unlike the peasants, whose diet consisted of 90% of products from grain crops, the warriors ate, although not daily, meat, usually game, fish, vegetables, fruits, and nuts. The drinks included wine and beer. But, as historians note, preference was given not to the assortment, but to the abundance of food.

The maintenance of a professional army and the maintenance of its combat readiness required constant expenses, which determined the socio-economic order of the feudal organization. It was based on the fact that the peasant who cultivated the land of the seigneur was obliged to give part of the harvest to maintain the feudal economy. A feudal estate could exist if there was enough land and peasants to cultivate it and create a product that satisfies its needs and the needs of the army.

Another social group was the actual serfs, who resembled slaves in their position, who worked exclusively for the master's yard and received allowance from him. The latter were not peasants in the full sense of the word, since their tasks included servicing the feudal army and the castle-fortress, located in the center of the feudal estate. Serfs, i.e. working at the fortress, carried out the most varied work but its maintenance. In addition to the in-kind service, their tasks included the performance of the most varied handicraft work. In all likelihood, the penchant for crafts was specially revealed among the peasantry, after which the most talented workers were settled in the immediate vicinity of the feudal lord's place of residence.

Serfs were the first to specialize in craft activities. They were engaged in construction, production of various products from wood and metals, including weapons and armor for the army. It should be noted that the variety of materials and ways of working with them, as well as the increasing variety of things produced, forced workers to specialize in certain crafts, deepening and improving their professional skills.

The same tendencies were characteristic of the serfs who worked at the monasteries. In general, in economic terms, monasteries of the early Middle Ages had much in common with feudal estates. They also had at their disposal serfs (monastic) peasants who cultivated the lands belonging to the monastery, as well as created various handicraft utensils.

Historical excursion

"Matriculars (monks who kept a register - matricula) and lay people worked in the monastery, in particular shoemakers, chasers, goldsmiths, carpenters, parchment-makers, blacksmiths, healers, etc. Monasteries lived mainly on rent from serfs peasants, usually paid in kind, as well as at the expense of corvee, which the peasants worked off on the monastic lands. "

By the X century. serf labor was varied and distributed by profession. For example, in the largest medieval monastery of St. Gall in 820, the following crafts and craft specialties were presented:

• food production artisans - miller, baker, butcher;
• artisans for making clothes - spinner, weaver, cutter, feller, tanner, shoemaker;
• joiners and carpenters - wheel-maker, blacksmith, sword and shield makers;
• builders - carpenter, bricklayer, stone mason.

The only thing that distinguished the labor of serfs from the labor of free artisans in cities was that their activities were carried out within the framework of several professions at once.

Thus, in the era of the early Middle Ages, the foundations of a professional division of labor were laid among artisans. By the beginning of the classical era of the Middle Ages, professions were already formed and assigned to craft families. And although the ethics of the craft exists only in its infancy, there are all forms of social division of labor.

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• History of the Middle Ages / ed. S.P. Karpov. M .: Publishing house of Moscow State University. 2003.S. 18.
• Cm.: Scully T. The Art of Cookery in the Middle Ages. Woodbridge: The Bovdell Press, 1995.
• Pirenne A. Empire of Charlemagne and the Arab Caliphate. M .: Tsentrpoligraf, 2011.S. 319.