The Doorkeeper: A Medieval Adventure

Unusual Medieval Professions

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When I began my training as a surveyor, much of our time was spent either in the drawing office, working on drafting skills on a drawing board with pencil and set squares, or outside in the field gaining practical experience in collecting dimensions using chains and tapes. Although we had pocket calculators, our lecturer used a slide rule https: Our time on the computers was an hour a week, using a very simple drawing programme to join literally and figuratively the dots on the screen.

When I moved disciplines from surveying into archaeology, and went to Bournemouth University, I revelled in the Copac computer terminals. I could search for journals and books without having to flick through a paper catalogue and I would begin to remember where certain items were to be found on the shelves. There was also the internet. As an expat living over the border in England, here I could explore the archaeology and history of Wales and begin to formulate ideas about the direction I wanted my academic research to take.

Another early site was the English Heritage Geophysical Survey Database, which was created in to provide a publicly accessible index of all the geophysical surveys of archaeological sites undertaken by them. The website itself no longer exists, but you can explore elements of it here, archived by the Archaeology Data Service: By his own admission, Philip was an amateur with no academic qualifications in his chosen field of study, but Gatehouse was, and is, the first port of call for any one interested in researching the history and archaeology of castles.

Its breadth and depth of material is quite astonishing, with every castle having an entry, and every entry containing a considerable amount of detail. Drawing on national and regional databases, to which he added additional information, it is the kind of resource I could only dream of twenty years ago. Somehow, if steps have not been taken already to do so, this website should be curated and kept accessible for all to use.

I last saw Philip in June. After it all being very quiet on here, I can finally reveal what has been happening behind the scenes of the blog.

After my operation in I had to take some time off to recover, only to find I needed another big operation in early to empty both kidneys of stones. Llwydcoed is a park which is often referenced by medieval historians because of the detailed descriptions of its creation, including a description of how large it was and the number of gates into it. However, with a bit of research, and some lateral thinking, I located Llwydcoed in the landscape and also some features within it, including a moated site.

The second had originally been presented to the 4th Garden History Society Graduate Symposium in , entitled: After the double operation, my PhD tutor helped me suspend my studies so I could get my breath and my strength back. She suggested that I should put together a submission to write a book containing all the research I had undertaken to date and submit it to her. Apologies for the lack of activity. I have been chronically unwell again. That, coupled with the shear volume of material I had collected, and unfortunately also curated, meant I felt I had nothing constructive to offer by the way of a blog post.

Finally however, my last operation — hopefully for a while at least — will be on the 22nd of April , so I expect to be able to write happily unencumbered by the usual ever growing rock army of kidney stones. In among all this internal excitement I have also moved house. We my wife and our three cats now live in the flat which used to belong to my paternal grandparents.

Built in the s, it is light, bright and airy and most importantly my desk is now by a big window rather than tucked away in the far corner of the last place we lived. As I stood and admired my handy work from the kitchen window, arm deep in washing up suds, I decided I would work on the material for my PhD chapter on gardens. It is by far the weakest chapter in terms of content and structure, but the strongest in terms of the new discoveries I have made during the research process. Unfortunately, many of these ideas have gone straight into the lecturing notes and Power Point presentations, rather than into the chapter as they should have.

Last summer I was fortunate enough to be one of two archaeologists working on an archaeological excavation in Rhuddlan Latitude The excavation was undertaken for a client who had planning permission to build a new house within a medieval burgage plot directly opposite the north-west corner of the Edwardian castle [A burgage was a town rental property owned by a king or lord. The burgage usually, and distinctly, consisted of a house on a long and narrow plot of land with a narrow street frontage].

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A preceding archaeological evaluation, which examined only a small percentage of the total area of the site found medieval and post-medieval pottery and hints of some kind of ditch system within the plot. Documentary research established that the front of the burgage plot was now lost under part of a row of nineteenth century cottages, but the rear of the plot, as far as all the evidence indicated had been unencumbered by buildings and appeared to have always served as a garden in one form or another.

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My fellow archaeologist and I employed the services of a mechanical excavator to remove the considerable overburden dumped on the plot from the building of both the cottages at the front of the plot but also from the construction of another row of nineteenth century cottages to the western side of the plot. The archaeological excavation of the medieval deposits revealed that the rear of the plot had not been occupied by a property, but had served as open space within which over the following centuries a series of pits and ditches had been dug, some of which had animal bone within them.

However it was something far more ephemeral which was uncovered that I was more excited about for my PhD research. The natural ground surface that is the surface into which we find cut the earliest archaeological deposits on any site was on one part of the site imprinted with the ends of tree roots. This was where a tree had established itself within the soil higher up than the natural and had then tried to extend its tree roots through the natural. Why are tree root indentations exciting? The Edwardian castle garden was only 80 metres feet away and planted on identical geology.

Although all above ground evidence, except for the well within the garden has disappeared, the excavations reveal the kind of archaeological evidence we should expect if an excavation on the site of the Edwardian Castle garden was undertaken. My Manchester Metropolitan University page — which describes the aims and objectives of my PhD research:. You can also help fund my research — which has reached its original funding target. However if you like what you read, then you can still donate. In my blog post last week https: By placing the map of c. The points marked can then by exported to the programme Google Earth.

My Manchester Metropolitan University page: Please help fund my research: If want to know more — have a look at http: The online texts will be accompanied by a wealth of commentary and interpretation to enable all potential users to exploit this source easily and effectively. Back to our particular Inquisition taken in , which was taken on the death of Ankaretta Lestrange. Although the park is not recorded prior to , it must have been in existence prior to this date for it to be included.

During my research I found this image which was published in Rowley, T. This map — produced c. With the trees being chopped down by men equipped with axes. Firstly, the original map does have north marked on it, it just happens that it is written in Latin. Another way of orientating the map would be to look at where the county of Flintshire is marked, and in this case the county of Flintshire should be to the west of the county of Shropshire.

So, with the map orientated, what other clues can we glean from the map? Tilstock Park in its final incarnation had two gates, one on the western side and one on the eastern side.

The gate on the western side had a park lodge outside of the park on the northern side, and there was another building in the north western corner of the park. On the southern side of the park was a water gate which allowed the flow of water to be controlled into a series of fish ponds on the south eastern side. Rowley thought that the park was divided into three — and in the ownership of Greene, Chawner and Gregorie.

However, although Chawner and Gregorie appear to be depicted on the map, with axes over their shoulder, there is no sign of Greene. It would appear that in this case Greene refers to an open space, something we would expect to find in a medieval park. Chawner and Gregorie are probably felling the trees in Tilstock Park in order to see them off and make some money as they change the use of the park from something which would have derived its income from a variety of sources, for example from the deer and other animals kept in the park, from the fish in the ponds and from the sale of wood.

The park would now become an open space used as farmland, in this case pasture for sheep or cows.

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When I saw the original, I quickly understood why. The map was in several shades of green with black ink illustrations on top. This meant it was very difficult to read, and even more difficult to photograph. In the following list, I have made a link to the online version of Webster's Dictionary, so you can find out what things are.

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In some cases, the definition is also included locally. I am slowly making local definitions for all these occupations, for your convenience. Is there something on this page you'd like to see that isn't here? Send me an email at svincent svincent.

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Also, do you know more occupations that aren't on this list? Do you have definitions that I'm missing? I'd love to improve this page! This site gets me a fair few questions via email, many of which I can just answer. Some of them have stumped me. This is my current list of stumpers: If you can answer any of these, or even have some clues, mail me. I and my questioners would be ever grateful. Governmental Occupations These are the people who run things. They keep society moving smoothly, if they're good at what they do, and can bring society to a crunching halt, if they're not.

Rife for corruption, government officials can play a significant role in many campaigns. Who keeps the country safe from encroaching enemies and wild monsters? Why, the military, of course. These brave men - and sometimes women train against the possibility that they'll have to protect their country with their lives.

Wherever there is society, there are criminals. These occupations include only the so-called "professional criminal": If Government officials run the affairs of earthly beings, then those occupied with religious pursuits mediate between earth and the gods. Priests are relatively common in role playing games. These men and women are the people behind the church: In a society based on trade - either with hard currency or barter, there are always those who spend their lives in the pursuit of selling things to others. Note that most craftsmen also sell the results of their labor, farmers typically must sell their crops themselves, people in service trades often must hawk their own wares.

This section does not include them. It includes only those people who spend their entire lives devoted to selling things, and nothing more. In any society, there is the need for spare time. And what did people do before television? Well, they mostly sang songs, told stories, and danced. From this, some professional entertainers developed. Also included in this section are artists: There is enormous overlap between artists and entertainers I won't get into the argument of whether art should be used to entertain or express the artist's true feelings.

That's beyond my scope here, certainly. Ah -- the farmers. Without them, we'd starve. Wresting sustenence from the very earth itself. There's a large number of occupations associated with farming:

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