A Monarch of his Profession

Chef: The head cook in a kitchen.

“You will do it, young Bertie, or never darken my doors again. And you know what that means. No more of Anatole’s dinners for you.’

A strong shudder shook me. She was alluding to her chef, that superb artist. A monarch of his profession, unsurpassed – nay, unequalled – at dishing up the raw material so that it melted in the mouth of the ultimate consumer, Anatole had always been a magnet that drew me to Brinkley Court with my tongue hanging out. Many of my happiest moments had been those which I had spent champing this great man’s roasts and ragouts, and the prospect of being barred from digging into them in the future was a numbing one.

‘No, I say, dash it!’

‘I thought that would rattle you. Greedy young pig.’

‘Greedy young pigs have nothing to do with it,’ I said with a touch of hauteur. ‘One is not a greedy young pig because one appreciates the cooking of a genius.’

‘Well, I will say I like it myself,’ conceded the relative. ‘But not another bite of it do you get, if you refuse to do this simple, easy, pleasant job. No, not so much as another sniff. So put that in your twelve-inch cigarette-holder and smoke it.’”

P. G. Wodehouse, Right Ho, Jeeves (1934)

Leech

A doctor, named for the practice of treating patients by bleeding them with leeches.

"The other half of the sword-hilt and the blade were bent, but not severed; and these, I believe, tore off my hand betwixt the gauntlet and the arm-piece: my arm was shattered behind and before. When I marked now that my hand hung loose by the skin, and that my spear lay under my horse's feet, I made as though nothing had befallen me, turned my horse softly round, and, in spite of all, came back to my own folk without let or hindrance from the enemy. Just then there came up an old spearman, who would have ridden into the thick of the fray: him I called to me, and besought that he would stay at my side, since he must see how matters stood with me. So he tarried with me at my prayer, and then he must needs fetch me the leech. When I came to Landshut, my old comrades told me who had fought in the battle against me, and in what wise I had been shot, and that a nobleman, Fabian von Wallsdorf, a Voigtlaender, had been struck and slain by the same shot, notwithstanding that it had struck me first; so that in this wise both friend and foe took harm alike. This nobleman was a fair and goodly gentleman, such that among many thousands you would scarce find any goodlier to behold...."

Goetz von Berlichingen, Autobiography (1504).

Lords Brought Low

A ruler of some ilk. A master of servants.

"The lords of England, who since Brutus' days had never known the yoke of slavery, were now scorned, derided, and trodden under foot: they were compelled to shave their beards and clip their flowing locks in the Norman fashion: casting aside their horns and wonted drinking-vessels, their feasts and carousals, they were compelled to submit to new laws. Wherefore many of the English nobles refused the yoke of slavery and fled with all their households to live by plunder in the woods, so that scarce any man could go safely abroad in his own neighbourhood; the houses of all peaceful folk were armed like a besieged city with bows and arrows, bills and axes, clubs and daggers and iron forks; the doors were barred with locks and bolts. The master of the house would say prayers as if on a tempest-tossed bark; as doors or windows were closed, men said Benedicite, and Dominus echoed reverently in response; a custom which lasted even into our own days [probably about A.D. 1150]."

Thomas Walsingham, Gesta Abbatum S. Albani (1350)

Yegg

A crook.

“The big man was a yegg. San Francisco was on fire for him. The yegg instinct would be to use a rattler to get away from trouble. The freight yards were in this end of town. Maybe he would be shifty enough to lie low instead of trying to powder. In that case, he probably hadn’t crossed Market Street at all. If he stuck, there would still be a chance of picking him up tomorrow. If he was hightailing, it was catch him now or not at all.”

Dashiell Hammett, Fly Paper (1924)

Whipper

"Love is merely a madness; and, I tell you, deserves a dark house and a whip as madmen do: and the reason why they are not so punished and cured is that the lunacy is so ordinary that the whippers are in love too."

--Shakespeare

Statesman

Someone who takes a lead in the political life of a community.

“Through all the employments of life,/ Each neighbour abuses his brother;/ Whore and rogue, they call husband and wife;/ All professions be-rogue one another./ The priest calls the lawyer a cheat;/ The lawyer be-knaves the divine;/ And the statesman, because he’s so great,/ Thinks his trade as honest as mine.”

John Gay, The Beggar’s Opera (1728)

Healer

Another word for a doctor.

"That evening the Third Princess was taken with severe pains. Guessing that they were birth pangs, her women sent for Genji in great excitement. He came immediately. How vast and unconditional his joy would be, he thought, were it not for his doubts about the child. But no one must be allowed to suspect their existence. He summoned ascetics and put them to continuous spells and incantations, and he summoned all the monks who had made names for themselves as healers. The Rokujo mansion echoed with mystic rites. The princess was in great pain through the night and at sunrise was delivered of a child. It was a boy. Most unfortunate, thought Genji. It would not be easy to guard the secret if the resemblance to the father was strong."

Murasaki Shikibu, The Tale of Genji (11th Century)

Translated by Edward G. Seidensticker.

Imperator

In ancient Rome, under the Roman Republic, it originally meant commander. Later, under the Roman Empire it was used solely to designate the emperor.

"We know how far-reaching were the consequences of the agrarian crisis in Italy towards the middle of the second century B.C., and what efforts were made by certain reformers to re-establish that class of peasants which had provided the foundation for the greatness of the Roman Republic. It is interesting, too, to detect an echo of the words of Praxagora in the famous speech which Plutarch (Tiberius Gracchus, 9) puts into the mouth of Tiberius Gracchus: 'The wild beasts that roam over Italy [he would say], have every one of them a cave or lair to lurk in; but the men who fight and die for Italy enjoy the common air and light, indeed, but nothing else; houseless and homeless they wander about with their wives and children. And it is with lying lips that their imperators exhort the soldiers in their battles to defend sepulchres and shrines from the enemy; for not a man of them has an hereditary altar, not one of all these many Romans an ancestral tomb, but they fight and die to support others in wealth and luxury, and though they are styled masters of the world, they have not a single clod of earth that is their own.'"

Claude Mossé, The Ancient World of Work

[translated by Janet Lloyd] (1969).

Commander

Napoleon reportedly said at Austerlitz:

"To command is to wear out! There is only one age for war. I am good for six years more. After that, I myself will have to stop."

Count Philippe-Paul de Segur, Napoleon's Russian Campaign (1824)

Sticker

Someone who kills pigs with a knife. Someone whose employ is to open oysters.

"Master Bardell the pig-butcher, and his foreman Samuel Slark, or, as he was more commonly called, Sam the Sticker."

Hood, Sk. Road, Sudden Death Wks. (1833)

Hey, Porter

Someone who has charge of a door or gate, letting people in or keeping people out.

"Once outside in the courtyard I called out: 'Hey, porter, where are you? Open the gate, I want to be off before daybreak.' He was lying naked on the bare ground beside the gate and answered, still half-asleep: 'Who's that? Who's asking to get off at this time of night? Don't you know, whoever you are, that the roads are swarming with bandits? You may be tired of life, or you may have some crime on your conscience, but don't think that I'm such a pumpkin-headed idiot as to risk my life for yours by opening the gate and letting them in.' I protested: 'But it's almost morning. And anyhow, what harm could bandits do you? Certainly I think you are an idiot to be afraid of them. A team of ten professional wrestlers couldn't take anything worth having from a man as naked as you are.'"

Apuleius, The Golden Ass (2nd Century A.D.)

[translated by Robert Graves].

Farmer

"A more commonplace consequence of an early exposure to agriculture is a deeply valid appreciation of the nature of manual labor. It leaves all of minimal sensitivity with an enduring knowledge of its unpleasantness. A long day following a plodding, increasingly reluctant team behind a harrow endlessly back and forth over the uninspiring Ontario terrain persuaded one that all other work was easy."

John Kenneth Galbraith, A Life in our Times.

Mathematician

"And so I could never have enough praise for the famous cock who was really Pythagoras. When he had been everything in turn, philosopher, man, woman; king, commoner, fish, horse, frog, even a sponge, I believe, he decided that man was the most unfortunate of animals, simply because all the others were content with their natural limitations while man alone tries to step ouside those allotted to him. Again, amongst men in many ways he preferred the ignorant to the learned and great. Gryllus was considerably wiser than 'many-counselled Odysseus' when he chose to grunt in his sty rather than share the risks of so many dangerous hazards."

Erasmus, Praise of Folly (1509)

[translated by Betty Radice, notes by A. H. T. Levi (1993)].

Bodice Ripper

Corset Maker: someone who makes the laced bodices, or tight fitting outer garments, that in certain periods were worn by women.

"Females are more employed in stay and corset making than males."

Nathaniel Whittock, The complete book of trades (1837).

Camel Breeder

"In the desert, the camel-breeding nomads regarded themselves as the most honourable, because their life was the freest and the least restrained by external authority."

Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples (1991).

Mime

A mimic or buffoon. A pantomimist.

"He is an admirable mime, or mimic, and most delectable company."

Samuel Foote, The Minor (1760).

Almugavar

A mercenary soldier.

"The King had with him some five thousand Almugavars, whereof he bade one thousand tarry behind at Perelada. These men, therefore, were sore grieved to be thus left, and they were cut to the heart to consider how they must now lose that spoil which the rest could win in skirmishes against the French; wherefore they purposed to get themselves some other satisfaction: hear ye therefore the iniquity which they devised in their hearts! About midnight, when the King and Infante were gone forth from Perelada, and already perchance at Vilabertran or Figueres, they went and set fire to a full hundred places of the town, and cried: "Forth, forth!" What more? When the good folk heard this tumult from their beds, and saw the whole town in flames, then each hastened to save his son or daughter, and the men thought only of their wives and children; and the Almugavars for their part set their minds to steal and pillage."

Don Ramon Muntaner (1325)

Beater

Someone employed to beat the bushes and flush out animals for hunters.

"But then I also had to take into account the fact that I have a voice within me repeating, I want, raving and demanding, making a chaos, desiring, desiring, and disappointed continually, which drove me forth as beaters drive game. So I had no business to make terms with life, but had to accept such conditions as it would let me have."

Saul Bellow, Henderson The Rain King (1958).

Philanthropist

Someone who donates money for good works or good causes. Literally, a lover of humankind.

"Men leave their riches either to their kindred, or to the public; and moderate portions prosper best in both. A great state left to an heir is as a lure to all the birds of prey round about to seize on him, if he be not the better established in years and judgment; likewise, glorious gifts and foundations are like sacrifices without salt, and but the painted sepulchers of alms, which soon will putrefy and corrupt inwardly. Therefore, measure not thine advancements by quantity, but frame them by measure, and defer not charities till death; for, certainly, if a man weigh it rightly, he that doth so is rather liberal of another man's than of his own."

Francis Bacon, Essays, Of Riches (1625).

Doctor

One who gives instruction in some branch of knowledge. A physician.

"I was unwell. You hurried round, surrounded by ninety students, Doctor. Ninety chill, North-wind-chapped hands then pawed and probed and pounded. I was unwell: now I'm extremely ill."

Martial, The Epigrams, (85 AD)

Emerson on Trappers

Someone who sets traps to catch animals, especially for their furs.

“A sudden cry, as of a wild thing taken in the trap, Which sees the trapper coming thro’ the wood.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Enid (1857).

Contortionist

A gymnast or athlete who entertains people by contorting his or her body into seemingly impossible positions and postures. The human pretzel.

"Cremorne Gardens - Wanted: male and female Equestrians, Tumblers, Acrobatic Performers, Contortionists."

Charles Cornwallis, New World (1859).

Jack Pudding

A clown or buffoon, especially one who works for a mountebank. Maybe known for throwing pies.

"The Junto-men, the Hocus-Pocusses, the State-Mountebanks, with their Zanyes and Jack-puddings!"

Clement Walker, History of Independency (1648).

Candlestick-maker

Someone who makes candlesticks.

"Some monster of the middle class, some tinker or tailor, or candlestick-maker, with his long purse, preaching reform and practicing corruption."

Benjamin Disraeli, Sybil (1845)

Sutler

One who follows an army and sells provisions, liquors, and the like to the troops.

"The soldiers had not anticipated the assault of the enemy; even had they done so, they had not strength to repulse it. Thus the camp was taken and plundered. Then the enemy fell upon the sutlers and Roman traders, who were wandering about in every direction, as they would in a time of peace."

Tacitus, Histories (100 AD)

Forger

Someone who forges metal. A smith. A coiner of money. A counterfeiter.

"Thinke not that I have forg'd or am not able Verbatim to rehearse the Methode of my Penne."

William Shakespeare, Henry VI (1591)

Head Hunter

Warriors who cut off the heads of enemies they kill in battle and which they later preserve as trophies.

"Some Dyaks have stated that they would give up head-hunting, were it not for the taunts and gibes of their wives and sweethearts."

H. Keppel, Ind. Archip. (1853)

Pantomime

A Roman actor who performed without words.

"The Pantomime may be said to be a Species unto himself: He has no Commerce with the rest of Mankind, but as they are the Objects of Imitation."

Sir Richard Steele, The Tattler (1709).

Prognosticator

Someone who professes to be able to foretell the future.

"Averring no prognosticator lies, That says, some great ones fall, their rivals rise."

Thomas Middleton, Father Hubburd's Tales or the ant and the nightingale (1604)

Raftsman

Someone who takes goods or people over water by raft.

"We slept most all day, and started out at night, a little ways behind a monstrous long raft that was as long going by as a procession. She had four long sweeps at each end, so we judged she carried as many as thirty men, likely. She had five big wigwams aboard, wide apart, and an open campfire in the middle, and a tall flagpole at each end. There was a power of style about her. It amounted to something being a raftsman on such a craft as that."

Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn (1884)

Ox-Boy

A young fellow who takes care of oxen. A cowboy.

"The oxboy as ill is as he,
Or worser, if worse may be found."

Thomas Tusser, Five hundreth pointes of good husbandrie (1573)

Roundsman

A laborer in need of help, who was sent round from one farmer to another for employment, partly at the expense of the farmer and partly at the cost of the village. Also, a policeman who patrols a city at night, making the rounds.

"Do you ever get aground on the alligators now?"
"Oh, no! it hasn't happened for years."
"Well, then, why do they still keep the alligator-boats in service?"
"Just for police duty--nothing more. They merely go up and down now and then. The present generation of alligators know them as easy as a burglar knows a roundsman; when they see one coming, they break camp and go for the woods."

Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi (1883).

Henchman

A groom. An attendant. A right-hand man.

"The Foster-brother, having the same Education as the young Chief, may besides that become his Hanchman. This Officer is a Sort of Secretary, and is to be ready upon all Occasions, to venture his Life in defence of his Master; and at Drinking-bouts he stands behind his Seat, at his Haunch, from whence his Title is derived, and watches the Conversation."

Edward Burt, Letters from a gentleman in the north of Scotland (1730).

Stevedore

Someone who loads or unloads commercial ships' cargo. An overseer of dockworkers.

“I could see exactly what must have happened. Insert a liberal dose of mixed spirits in a normally abstemious man, and he becomes a force. He does not stand round, twiddling his fingers and stammering. He acts. I had no doubt that Gussie must have reached for the Bassett and clasped her to him like a stevedore handling a sack of coals. And one could readily envisage the effect of that sort of thing on a girl of romantic mind.”

P. G. Wodehouse, Right Ho, Jeeves (1934).

Drudge

Someone who performs servile, monotonous, and difficult work.
A hack.

"Up, and pleased mightily with what my poor wife hath been doing these eight or ten days with her owne hands like a drudge, in fitting the new hangings of our bedchamber of blue and putting the old red ones into my dressing-room; and so by coach to White Hall."

Samuel Pepys, Diary (January 26, 1666)

Horse Traders

Someone who makes a living buying, selling, and swapping horses.

“Mr. Knox accompanied me into the house and had a drink. He was a fair, spare young man, who looked like a stableboy among gentlemen, and a gentleman among stableboys. He belonged to a clan that cropped up in every grade of society in the county, from Sir Valentine Knox of Castle Knox down to the auctioneer Knox, who bore the attractive title of Larry the Liar. So far as I could judge, Florence McCarthy of that ilk occupied a shifting position about midway in the tribe. I had met him at dinner at Sir Valentine’s, I had heard of him at an illicit auction, held by Larry the Liar, of brandy stolen from a wreck. They were ‘Black Protestants,’ all of them, in virtue of their descent from a godly soldier of Cromwell, and all were prepared at any moment of the day or night to sell a horse.”

E. OE. Somerville and Martin Ross, The Irish R.M. (1899-1915)

Stokers

The person responsible for putting fresh fuel in a furnace and keeping it burning.

"Of a famous brewer my purpose is to tell,
the noble Stoker Okey that doth the rest excel."

J. Okie's Lament (1660).

School Masters

Someone who teaches in a school or is the principal or director of a school.

"Tyrannical, impatient, hair-brain schoolmasters, aridi magistri [dry masters], as Fabius terms them, Ajaces flagelliferi [flogging bullies], are in this kind as bad as hangmen and executioners; they make many children endure a martyrdom all the while they are at school; with bad diet, if they board in their houses, too much severity and ill-usage, they quite pervert their temperature of body and mind: still chiding, railing, frowning, lashing, tasking, keeping, that they are fracti animis, moped many times, weary of their lives, nimia severitate deficiunt et desperant [through harsh treatment they become dull and dispirited], and think no slavery in the world (as once I did myself) like to that of a grammar scholar."

Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621).

Hawkers

Someone who tends or trains hawks. A falconer.

"The hawkers and fowlers
when they have caught the fowl,
divide the bootie with the hawks."

Philemon Holland, Pliny's historie of the world,
commmonly called the natural historie (1601).

African Wheat, Roman Bread

Corn prefect: An official in ancient Rome who supervised the corn market and the pricing of corn, as well as, it seems, the wheat supply.

"However, it was over the crucial occupations that the state first appears to have exercised its control: those industries which helped to ensure provisions for the army and the large cities, especially Rome. And it is in Rome that we can study in the greatest detail this supervision of the occupations connected with the food supply. The wheat supply for the city of Rome was the major concern. Although there was a free market for the surpluses which Italian landowners put up for sale, only small quantities were involved and the praefectus annonae, or corn prefect, merely kept an eye on the prices. In contrast, wheat, which was collected by the treasury and officially distributed, was strictly controlled from its importation until it was baked into bread. The emperor fixed the 'wheat ration' to be sent to Rome each year. Most of it came from Africa, and from the time that it was taken aboard ship in an African port it was the object of unrelenting security precautions. The official first responsible was the prefect of the African corn. He supervised its being handed over to the shippers charged with the carriage to Ostia. These navicularii, members of a guild, were kept under double supervision: during the crossing they were responsible to the praetorian prefect and the prefect of the African annona. Upon their arrival at Ostia or at Porto, they passed to the control of the Roman corn prefect and the urban prefect. They were required to make the shortest possible crossing and were not allowed to stop anywhere, on pain of death or deportation. They were held responsible for delivery and they paid for any loss out of their own pockets. A register of the Roman navicularii was kept by the urban prefect, which contained a list of the estates owned by the guild, whose sixty richest members each year contributed towards the upkeep of the public baths."

Claude Mossé, The Ancient World of Work

[translated by Janet Lloyd], 1969.

Men-at-arms, Francs-archers, and Provost-marshals

"All the country parishes in Anjou were constrained to raise men-at-arms commonly called francs-archers, which was a grievous burden; for each parish furnished one man who they had to fit out with cap, plumes, doublet, leather collar, hosen and shoes, with such harness and staff as the captain should command. Albeit they were raised, fed, clothed and armed at so great a cost, yet were they unprofitable both to prince and to people; for they began to rise up against the common folk, desiring to live at ease without further labouring at their wonted trades, and to pillage in the fields as they would have done in an enemy's country; wherefore several of them were taken and given into the hands of the provost-marshals, ending their lives on the gibbet which they had so well deserved."

Jean de Bourdigne, Chronicle of Anjou (1521).

Fakirs

In Moslem countries, a religious mendicant.

“We strolled in the music hall district, where the sky lines of the row of buildings are wondrously near to each other, and the crowded little thoroughfares resemble the eternal ‘Street Scene in Cairo.’ There was an endless strumming and tooting and shrill piping in clamor and chaos, while at all times there were interspersed the sharp cracking sounds from the shooting galleries and the coaxing calls of innumerable fakirs. At the stand where one can throw at wooden cats and negro heads and be in danger of winning cigars, a self reliant youth bought a whole armful of base balls, and missed with each one. Everybody grinned. A heavily built man openly jeered. ‘You couldn’t hit a church!’ ‘Couldn’t I?’ retorted the young man, bitterly. Near them three bad men were engaged in an intense conversation. The fragment of a sentence suddenly dominated the noises. ‘He’s got money to burn.’”

Stephen Crane, Other Writings About New York, “Coney Island’s Failing Days” (1894-6).

Extortioners

Someone who obtains anything from a person through an illegal use of fear, whether by force, threats, or any other undue exercise of power (Webster's).

"I lodged in a dreary overpriced inn crouching in the lee of the Towers. I got up at dawn after many bad dreams, and paid the extortioner for bed and breakfast and inaccurate directions as to the way I should take, and set forth afoot to find Otherhord, an ancient Fastness not far from Rer. I was lost within fifty yards of the inn."

Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness (1969).

Hookers

A thief who used a hook to snatch articles out of apartments or houses with open, unattended windows. Handy employment for shepherds lost in the big city without a flock to tend to.

“The Courber, which the common people call the Hooker with a Curb or hook, doth pull out of a window any loose linen cloth, apparel, or else any other household stuffe.”

Robert Greene, Art of Conny-catching (1592).

Scale of 1 to 10: 3.

Pearl Divers

“’I suppose I shouldn’t have let things get out of hand like this. Last week I kept warning myself to hurry up and do something, but I didn’t pull myself together for some reason, and then Punt threw me out and there I was.’ He turned his hand inward in a gesture of self-presentation. ‘The way I look, pearl diving is about the only work I could get.’”

Saul Bellow, The Victim (1947).

The Thespian Spring

A tragedian, named for Thespis, the traditional father of Greek tragedy; an actor or actress.

“Nectar, Ambrosia, and the Thespian Spring, May all avaunt, for Money is the Thing.”

Edward Cocker, Morals, or the muses spring-garden (1675).

Mr. Customs Man

"Take an example from the bottom, in a class where the temptations are large, take the customs man: there are perhaps those who might receive a small tip on some insignificant occasion, but never for anything that gives the least suspicion of fraud. --Do you want to know, now, how much he's paid for this unappreciated work? six hundred francs, a little more than thirty cents a day; let's add to this the nights which are paid nothing; he passes, for every two nights one, on the border, on the coast, without shelter except for his coat, exposed to the attack of smugglers, to tempests, which, from the cliff, sometimes carry him into the sea. It's there, at this outpost, that his wife brings him his meager repast; because he is married, he has children, and, to nourish four or five people, he has around thirty cents. A young baker in Paris makes more than two customs men, more than a lieutenant in the infantry, more than that magistrate, more than most professors; he makes as much as six school principals!"

("Prenez en bas, dans une classe où les tentations sont grandes, prenez le douanier: il en est peut-être qui recevraient un léger pourboire dans une occasion insignifiante, mais jamais pour ce qui donne le moindre soupcon de fraude. --Voulez-vous savoir, maintenant, combien il a pour ce service ingrat? six cents francs, un peu plus de trente sous par jour; ajoutons-y les nuits qui ne sont point payées; il passe, de deux nuits l'une, sur la frontière, sur la côte, sans abri que son manteau, exposé à l'attaque du contrebandier, au vent de la tempête, qui, de la falaise, parfois l'emporte en mer. C'est là, par cette grève, que sa femme lui apporte son maigre repas; car il est marié, il a des enfants, et, pour nourrir quatre ou cinq personnes, il a à peu près trente sous. Un garcon boulanger à Paris gagne plus que deux douaniers, plus qu'un lieutenant d'infanterie, plus que tel magistrat, plus que la plupart des professeurs; il gagne autant que six maîtres d'école!")

Jules Michelet, The People (1846).

Fixers

Someone who repairs things.

“They taught me a trade and apprenticed me five minutes after age ten—not that I regret it. So I work—let’s call it work—with my hands, and some call me ‘common’ but the truth of it is few people know who is really common. As for those that look like they got class, take another look. Viskover, the Nogid, is in my eyes a common man. All he’s got is rubles and when he opens his mouth you can hear them clink.”

Bernard Malamud, The Fixer (1966).

Fish Wives

"Their chatt'ring makes a louder din
than fish-wives over a cup of gin."

Jonathan Swift, Truly Modern Lady (1728).

Little Whippersnappers

Whipping-boy: A boy educated alongside a young prince, who is flogged in the prince's stead, when the prince does something that was thought to deserve flogging.

"The choice of agents is a difficult matter, for you have to choose persons for whose faults you are to be punished; to whom you are to be the whipping-boy."

Sir Arthur Helps, Essays, On Choice of Agents (1841).

Scale of 1 to 10: 2.

Slaughterers

A butcher.

"Thou do'st then wrong me, as ye slaughterer doth,
Which giveth many Wounds, when one will kill."

William Shakespeare, Henry VI (1591).

Lighthouse Keepers

The person who lives in and maintains a lighthouse.

"Light-house keeper... by far the most life-weary looking mortal I ever saw."

Thomas Carlyle, Reminiscences (1866).

Muslin Makers

Someone who makes delicately woven cotton fabrics, including those used for women's dresses and curtains.

"That was a pretty bit of muslin hanging on your arm--who was she?"

William Makepeace Thackeray, The History of Pendennis (1850).

Mesmerists

Someone who hypnotizes people, as entertainment or therapy.

"Mesmerism: Nice conversational topic, useful too in procuring you mistresses."

Gustave Flaubert, Dictionary of Platitudes (1880).

[Translation by J. I. Rodale (1954).]

Plutarch on Property Speculators

"It is true that some rich slave-owners did have the idea of employing their slaves in specialised crafts in some branch of production: according to Plutarch, Crassus possessed 500 slaves who were carpenters and masons, and he exploited their labour to indulge in various property speculations, buying at very low prices the houses which were constantly being damaged by fire in Rome, and building on their sites new houses from which he derived large profits."

Claude Mossé, The Ancient World of Work (1969)

[Translated by Janet Lloyd].

Rascally Printers

A person who prints cloth, paper, books. A coiner. The owner of a publishing business. A person who works there.

"The city of Venice, so famous on many counts, is especially celebrated owing to the Aldine Press, and so whatever in the way of books is distributed from there to other countries finds a market for the sake of its place of origin alone. But this inducement is so misused by rascally printers, that from no other country do we get publications so shamelessly incorrect, and those not just of anybody's works, but of the greatest, Aristotle, for instance, and Cicero and Quintilian, to say nothing of the Holy Scriptures. The law sees to it that no one may make shoes or boxes without the approbation of the masters' guild, and yet authors of this stature, on whose works even religion depends, are handed out to the public by people so illiterate that they cannot even read, or so lazy that they don't trouble to go over what has been printed, or so mean that they would rather let a good book get choked up with six thousand mistakes than spend a few coins on paying someone to supervise the proof-reading."

Erasmus, Adages ("Festina lente") (1508).

[translated by Margaret Mann Phillips (1967)].

Glass-blowers

"I have not yet crossed the threshold. I am outside, between the Cyclopean blocks which flank the entrance to the shaft. I am still the man I might have become, assuming every benefit of civilization to be showered upon me with regal indulgence. I am gathering all of this potential civilized muck into a hard, tiny knot of understanding. I am blown to the maximum, like a great bowl of molten glass hanging from the stem of a glass-blower. Make me into any fantastic shape, use all your art, exhaust your lung-power--still I shall only be a thing fabricated, at the best a beautiful cultured soul. I know this, I despise it. I stand outside full-blown, the most beautiful, the most cultured, the most marvellously fabricated soul on earth. I am going to put my foot over the threshold--now. I do so. I hear nothing. I am not even there to hear myself shattering into a billion splintered smithereens. Only Agamemnon is there."

Henry Miller, The Colossus of Maroussi (1941).

Poachers

Someone who kills or catches game on someone else's land.

“A keeper is only a poacher turned outside in, and a poacher a keeper turned inside out.”

Charles Kingsley, The water-babies (1863).

Dragomen

A guide and interpreter in Arabic, Turkish, or Persian speaking countries.

"Till I cried out, you prove yourself so able,
Pity! you was not Druggerman at Babel!
For had they found a linguist half so good,
I make no question that the Tower had stood."

Alexander Pope, Satires of Dr. Donne versified (1735).

Canons

A clergyman living with others in a clergy house or cathedral, who follows the canons or rules of the church.

"This practice of the canonica vita or canonical life began to prevail in the 8th century; in the 11th century it was, in some churches, reformed by the adoption of a rule (based upon a practice mentioned by St. Augustine) that clergymen so living together should renounce private property: those who embraced this rule were known as Augustinian (Augustin) or regular, the others were secular canons." (OED).

"By 1441 Gloucester's authority in the State was wellnigh ended, but some historians believe his enemies used the charge against his wife to deliver the coup de grace. As a preliminary, charges were brought against two men, Roger Bolingbroke, an Oxford priest, 'a great and cunning man in astronomy', and Thomas Southwell, canon of St. Stephen's, Westminster, who were accused of making a wax image of Henry VI, which they exposed to a slow fire, and by aid of the devil, as the image melted, so the life of the king would fade away. Bolingbroke, on a July Sunday in 1441, was placed on a high scaffold outside St. Paul's, arrayed in his magic garments. About him were the writings, the images of wax, silver and metal, together with other instruments of his craft. He had a paper crown and there before the multitude swore to abuse his false craft of the devil. From there he was taken to the Tower to await further judgment."

Six Medieval Men & Women, "Henry, Duke of Gloucester," H. S. Bennett (1955).

Poets and Philosophers

"Women make us poets, children make us philosophers."

--Malcolm de Chazal.

Buskers

A mendicant singer, artist, or actor who performs in the market, on sidewalks, in train stations.

"A busker is often a musician of no small talent who performs in public for alms, playing without formal engagement or concert hall, for a musically disinclined audience that pretends not to be able to afford the price of admission."

--R. Voorhees.

Assassins

Since an act of assassination often borders on the suicidal, murderers-for-hire have frequently been drug addled, as the term "assassin" attests. Having evolved from the Arabic word "hashshashshin," meaning “hashish eater,” it is clear that even when the Moslems were fighting the Christians during the Crusades, murder came easier to someone who was not in a normal state of mind. If you don't really know what you're doing and no longer appreciate what dangers await you, there's nothing to fear, right? Natural human misgivings give way to a drug-stoked, drug-benumbed resolve.

“It was easier to move the hearts of the multitude than to avoid the single assassin.”

Tacitus, Histories (100 AD).

(See Berserk.)

Scale of 1 to 10: 1. Risks high, pay low, history usually unsympathetic.

Steamboatmen

"When I was a boy, there was but one permanent ambition among my comrades in our village on the west bank of the Mississippi River. That was, to be a steamboatman. We had transient ambitions of other sorts, but they were only transient. When a circus came and went, it left us all burning to become clowns; the first negro minstrel show that ever came to our section left us all suffering to try that kind of life; now and then we had a hope that, if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates. These ambitions faded out, each in its turn; but the ambition to be a steamboatman always remained."

Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi (1883).

Queriers

A chimney sweep who asks for work.

"The knuller is also styled a "querier," a name derived from his making inquiries at the doors of the houses as to whether his services are required."

Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London poor (1861).

Porters

Someone who has charge of a door or gate, especially at the entrance of a fortified town or of a castle or other large building. A person whose employment is to carry someone else's burdens.

“Like a porter in a great house, ever nearest the door, but seldomest abroad.”

John Donne, Letters (1631).

Two False Knaves

A boy or lad who works as a servant.

"Two false knaves need no broker, men say."

John Heywood, A dialogue conteinyng the nomber in effect of all the proverbes in the Englishe tongue (1546).

A Royal-Scamp

A highway robber. A "royal-scamp" is one who robs civilly.

"Scamp, a cheat, a swindler; often used as to one who contracts debt, and runs off without paying it."

John Jamieson, An etymological dictionary of the Scottish language (1808).

Foucault on Prison Warders

“In 1836, a correspondent wrote to La Phalange: ‘Moralists, philosophers, legislators, flatterers of civilization, this is the plan of your Paris, neatly ordered and arranged, here is the improved plan in which all like things are gathered together. At the centre, and within a first enclosure: hospitals for all diseases, almshouses for all types of poverty, madhouses, prisons, convict-prisons for men, women and children. Around the first enclosure, barracks, courtrooms, police stations, houses for prison warders, scaffolds, houses for the executioner and his assistants. At the four corners, the Chamber of Deputies, the Chamber of Peers, the Institute and the Royal Palace. Outside, there are the various services that supply the central enclosure, commerce, with its swindlers and its bankruptcies; industry and its furious struggles; the press, with its sophisms; the gambling dens; prostitution, the people dying of hunger or wallowing in debauchery, always ready to lend an ear to the voice of the Genius of Revolutions; the heartless rich... Lastly the ruthless war of all against all’ (La Phalange, 10 August 1836).”

Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish (1975)

[Translated by Alan Sheridan]

A Rare Medium

"All through the night he was lost in spells and incantations, and at dawn the malign spirit in possession of the girl transferred itself to a medium. Assisted now by his favorite disciple, the bishop tried all manner of spells toward identifying the source of the trouble; and finally the spirit, hidden for so long, was forced to announce itself. 'You think it is this I have come for?' it shouted. 'No, no. I was once a monk myself, and I obeyed all the rules; but I took away a grudge that kept me tied to the world, and I wandered here and wandered there, and found a house full of beautiful girls. One of them died, and this one wanted to die too. She said so, every day and every night. I saw my chance and took hold of her one dark night when she was alone. But Our Lady of Hatsuse was on her side through it all, and now I have lost out to His Reverance. I shall leave you.' 'Who is that addresses us?' But the medium was tiring rapidly and no more information was forthcoming."

Murasaki Shikibu, The Tale of Genji (10th Century).

Translated by Edward G. Seidensticker.

Pretty Punk

A prostitute.

“I may grace her with the name of a Curtizan, a Backslider, a Prostitution, or such a Toy, but when all comes to all, 'tis but a plaine Pung.”

Thomas Middleton, Michaelmas Term (1607).

On a scale of 1 to 10: 1.

Beefeaters

The Yeoman of the Guard in the household of the Sovereign of Great Britain. A well-fed menial.

"Is not there a sort of employment, sir, called--beefeating? If your lordship please to make me a beefeater."

Henry Fielding, Pasquin (1736)

Naperers

The person in charge of the royal table linen.

"My Lady Hinchingbroke I cannot say is a beauty, nor ugly, but is altogether a comely lady enough and seems very good-humoured, and I mighty glad of the occasion of seeing her before to-morrow. Thence home, and there find one laying of my napkins against to-morrow in figures of all sorts, which is mighty pretty; and it seems it is his trade and he gets much money by it, and do now and then furnish tables with plate and linen for a feast at so much, and a trade I could not have thought of. Thence I to Mrs. Turner and did get her to go along with me to the French pewterer's, and there did buy some new pewter against to-morrow; and thence to White Hall to have got a cook of her acquaintance, the best in England, as she says."

Samuel Pepys, Diary (March 13, 1668)

Fowlers

Someone who hunts wild birds, whether for sport or food, especially one who uses nets.

"A bleary-eyed fowler, trust not, though he weep."

John Lydgate, Minor Poems (1430)

Marauders and Pillagers

A soldier who lives off of plunder taken from people defeated in battle.

"To be a Marauder and Pillager upon the street and field of human credit and reputation is worse than to turn common padders."

R. Ferguson, View of an Ecclesiastick in his socks and buskins (1698)

Criers

One appointed in a town or community to make public announcements. A common or town crier. An auctioneer. A hawker.

"'You know how long I have been without news of my runaway slave girl. So you simply must make a public announcement offering a reward to the person who finds her, and insist on my orders being obeyed at once. Her person must be accurately described so that nobody will be able to plead ignorance as an excuse for harbouring her. Here is her dossier; Psyche is the name, and all particulars are included.' She handed him a little book and immediately went home. Mercury did as he was told. He went from country to country crying out: 'Oyez, oyez! If any person can apprehend and seize the person of a runaway princess, one of the Lady Venus's slave-girls, by name PSYCHE, or give any information that will lead to her discovery, let such a person go to Mercury, Town-crier of Heaven, in his temple just outside the precincts of Our Lady of the Myrtles, Aventine Hill, Rome. The reward offered is as follows: seven sweet kisses from the mouth of the said Venus herself, and one exquisitely delicious thrust of her honeyed tongue between his pursed lips.'"

Apuleius, The Golden Ass, (2nd Century A.D.)

[translation by Robert Graves]

Remittance Men

Someone paid by his or her family to go away (and stay away).

"Harry Cram has never worked a day in his life," said Williams. "He's one of the first remittance men to come to the low country. His family sends his monthly checks from Philadelphia with the understanding he'll never go back there, and he leads a life of high style--traveling around the world, hunting, drinking, and playing polo. He's a wild man, completely charming."

John Berendt, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1994)

Bounty Jumpers

To get people to join the military, at times a certain amount of cash, called a bounty, has been offered new recruits. A bounty jumper takes the money, later sneaking off to re-enlist elsewhere, where he can pocket another bounty.

"Bringing into the service many 'bounty-jumpers' who enlisted merely for money, and soon deserted to enlist again."

Thomas Higginson, Young folks' history of the United States (1875)

Badgers

A traveling middleman who buys such things as fish, butter, cheese, and corn from their producers and resells them. A hawker.

"Badger, a huckster; a man who goes about the country with ass and panniers, to buy up butter, eggs, and fruit, which he will sell at a near market-town; and before shops were common in every village, he dealt in needles, thread, trimmings, and the like, for which he was open to exchange."

John C. Atkinson, Glossary of the Cleveland dialect (1868)

Harpists

Someone who plays the harp.

"We went to Fuller's (the famous place for ale), but they have none but what was in the vat. After that to Poole's, a tavern in the town, where we drank, and so to boat again, and went to the Assistance, where we were treated very civilly by the captain, and he did give us such music upon the harp by a fellow that he keeps on board that I never expect to hear the like again, yet he is a drunken simple fellow to look on as any I ever saw."

Samuel Pepys, Diary (April 30, 1660)

Oyster Shuckers

“May I say that I am perhaps the best lawyer on the Eastern Shore? Perhaps I shouldn’t, for you’ll take the statement as self-praise. If I thought the practice of law absolutely important, then my statement would indeed be as much a boast as a description; but truthfully I consider advocacy, jurisprudence, even justice, to have no more intrinsic importance than, say, oyster-shucking. And you’d understand, wouldn’t you, that if a man like myself asserted with a smile that he was the peninsula’s best oyster shucker (I’m not), or cigarette roller, or pinball-machine tilter, he’d not be guilty of prideful boasting? It requires small subtlety to grasp that, I think.”

John Barth, The Floating Opera (1956).

Yeoman's Service

A servant in a royal or nobleman's household, ranking between a sergeant and a groom. Used to designate their more specific duties with such titles as:

yeoman of the bottles,
yeoman of the buttery,
yeoman of the cellar,
yeoman of the chamber,
yeoman of the crown,
yeoman of the ewery,
yeoman of the horse,
yeoman for the household,
yeoman of the larder,
yeoman for the mouth,
yeoman of the revels,
yeoman of the robes,
yeoman of the sauces,
yeoman of the stable,
yeoman of the stirrup,
yeoman of the tents, and
yeoman of the wardrobe (OED).

"I once did hold it a baseness to write fair;
but Sir now, it did me Yeoman's service."

Shakespeare, Hamlet (1602)

Zany

A comedian who assists a clown or acrobat, and who imitates and exaggerates whatever his master does (from the name of the servants who act as clowns in the Commedia dell' arte).

"Some carry-tale, some please-man, some slight Zanie,
That knows the trick To make my Lady laugh."

Shakespeare, Love's Labours Lost (1588).

Tramplers

A go-between. An attorney.

“The trampler is in haste,
O clear the way,
Takes fees with both hands
cause he cannot stay.”

J. Taylor, Water Cormorant (1630).

Leading a Monkey Through the Streets

"The heart of his nonconformity was not, however, his exoticism. It was his adherence to the way of the townspeople and his belief that, in the cities at least, successful businessmen were the real aristocrats, while high birth and military prowess counted for little. This belief is expressed in one way by what he says in the Treasury for the Ages: 'It makes no difference whether a man is of humble birth or of fine lineage. The geneologies of townspeople are written in dollars and cents. A man who traces his ancestry to Fujiwara Kamatari [a noble of the highest court rank] but who lives impoverished in the city will be worse off than one who leads a monkey through the streets to earn his living.'"

William Theodore De Bary in the introduction to Ihara Saikaku, Five Women Who Loved Love (1686).

Lady Murasaki on Living by the Lute

Any musician playing in hope of a handout.

"Sending to the house on the hill for a lute and a thirteen-stringed koto, the old man now seemed to change roles and become one of these priestly medicants who make their living by the lute. He played a most interesting and affecting strain. Genji played a few notes on the thirteen-stringed koto which the old man pressed on him and was thought an uncommonly impressive performer on both sorts of koto. Even the most ordinary music can seem remarkable if the time and place are right; and here on the wide seacoast, open far into the distance, the groves seemed to come alive in colors richer than the bloom of spring or the change of autumn, and the calls of the water rails were as if they were pounding on the door and demanding to be admitted."

Murasaki Shikibu, The Tale of Genji (11th Century).

[Translated by Edward G. Seidensticker]

Gunrunners

A gun smuggler and supplier.

“It held some newspaper clippings, the oldest dated ten years back, the youngest eight months. I read them through, passing each one to the swarthy man as I finished it. Tom-Tom Carey was written down in them as soldier of fortune, gunrunner, seal poacher, smuggler, and pirate. But it was all alleged, supposed and suspected. He had been captured variously but never convicted of anything. ‘They don’t treat me right,’ he complained placidly when we were through reading.”

Dashiell Hammett, $106,000 Blood Money (1924).

Tuckers

A cloth dresser or finisher, especially one who stretches cloth that comes from a weaver. A fuller. Someone who teases or burls cloth.

"Wool could not be spun without being combed in oil; nor would it take the dye when woven, unless divested of the oil. This is the proper business of the Fuller, provincially called, the Tucker."

Nathaniel Whittock, The complete book of trades (1837).

Scratchers

A forger.

"A professional forgery gang consists of: First, a capitalist or backer; second, the actual forger, who is known among his associates as the 'scratcher'."

North American Review (1894).

Mummy Makers

Someone who preserves a body for burial as the ancient Egyptians did. The Egyptians preserved bodies by the use of bitumen, spices, gums, natron, honey, etc. In the more expensive forms of embalming, the body was cut open and filled with preservatives, after the viscera were separately preserved in canopic jars (Webster's).

"It is better to think out one true thought,
than to mummy our benumbed souls
with the circumvolutions of twenty thousand books."

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Some account of the Greek Christian Poets (1842).

A Shocker

Someone who piles up sheaves into shocks.

"Some o'er the rustling scythe go bending on; And shockers follow where their toils have gone."

John Clare, The shepherd's calendar (1827).

Predators' Balls

Mill-ken: A thief who breaks into houses.

“The same capacity which qualifies a Mill-ken to arrive at any degrees of eminence would likewise raise a man in what the world esteem a more honourable calling.”

Henry Fielding, The Life of Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great (1743).

Scale of 1 to 10... 3. (See Snudge.)

O. Henry on Stenographers

Someone skilled in writing shorthand and taking dictation.

“The (so-called) Vallambrosa Apartment-House is not an apartment-house. It is composed of two old-fashioned, brownstone-front residences welded into one. The parlor floor of one side is gay with the wraps and headgear of a modiste; the other is lugubrious with the sophistical promises and grisly display of a painless dentist. You may have a room there for two dollars a week or you may have one for twenty dollars. Among the Vallambrosa’s roomers are stenographers, musicians, brokers, shop-girls, space-rate writers, art students, wire-tappers, and other people who lean far over the banister-rail when the door-bell rings.”

O. Henry, The Third Ingredient (1908).

Judicial Nippers

A thief or pickpocket.

"He that could take a peece of sylver out of the purse without the noyse of any of the bells, he was adjudged a judiciall Nypper."

Fleetwood in Sir Henry Ellis' Original Letters (1585)

A Hierarchy of Respect Among Craftsmen

An artisan. Someone who creates any handiwork. An artist.

"Many craftsmen did not possess extensive capital resources; a study of Cairo has shown that a considerable proportion of the shops and workshops were owned by large merchants or by religious foundations. They could enjoy prestige, however, as a stable population pursuing honourable trades in accordance with generally accepted codes of honesty and decent workmanship. There was a hierarchy of respect in the crafts, ranging from work in precious metals, paper and perfume, down to such 'unclean' crafts as tanning, dyeing, and butchering."

Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples (1991).

Poetasters

A bad poet. A dogged composer of doggerel.

"How these authors magnify their office!
One dishonest plumber
does more harm than a hundred poetasters."

--Augustine Birrell.

Ropers and the Well-Woven Rope

Someone who makes or looks after ropes.

"Money stored up is every man's master, or slave. A well-woven rope ought to follow and not lead the way."

Horace, Epistle to Aristius Fuscus (21 B.C.)

Colet

An acolyte.

"Fyrst benet, than colet, subdecon, deacon, and than preest."

William Caxton, The cronicles of Englond (1480).

Story-tellers

Someone who recites stories, legends, and romances, publicly, for money.

"I have always felt that the art of telling a story consists in so stimulating the listener's imagination that he drowns himself in his own reveries long before the end. The best stories I have heard were pointless, the best books those whose plot I can never remember, the best individuals those whom I never get anywhere with. Though it has been practiced on me time and again I never cease to marvel how it happens that, with certain individuals whom I know, within a few minutes after greeting them we are embarked on an endless voyage comparable in feeling and trajectory only to the deep middle dream which the practiced dreamer slips into like a bone into its socket."

Henry Miller, The Colossus of Maroussi (1941).

Mudlarks

Someone who scavenges in the mud for salvageable material.

"Mudlarks, so called from their being accustomed to prowl about, at low water, under the quarter of West India ships under pretence of grubbing in the mud for old ropes, iron, etc., but whose chief object was to receive and conceal small bags of sugar, coffee, etc. which they conveyed to such houses as they were directed, and for which services they generally received a share of the booty."

Patrick Colquhoun, A Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis (1796).

Expensive and Conceited Exorcists

“Blood is adhesive. In a hotel it is like a curse. It is a taint that never goes away. For selfish reasons I was glad that the murder of Amo Ferretti was not committed in my hotel. Murders leave a sweetly poisonous smell that lingers, and any hotel unlucky enough to be the setting for a murder ceases to be a hotel and is known only as the scene of the crime, vicious and provocative, attracting all the wrong people, photographers and thrill seekers. The hotel never gets its reputation back, even after the charade of the most elaborate and noisy purification ceremonies, the howling monks, the gongs, the firecrackers, the tossing of salt, the prayers, the expensive and conceited exorcists.”

Paul Theroux, Hotel Honolulu (2001).

The Salt Burners' Fires

Someone who boils sea water to obtain the salt.

"'There on the shore, the salt burners' fires await me.
Will their smoke be as the smoke over Toribe Moor?
Is this the parting at dawn we are always hearing of?
No doubt there are those who know.'

'I have always hated the word "farewell,"' said Saisho,
whose grief seemed quite unfeigned.
'And our farewells today are unlike any others.'"

Murasaki Shikibu, The Tale of Genji (11th Century).

Translated by Edward G. Seidensticker.

First One Over the Wall

In a battle, the first soldier to scale the enemy's fortification.

"All rewards and signes of honour, as the Civicke garland, The murall wreath, the enemies Prime horse, To him alone are proper."

Philip Massinger, The Picture (1629).

Gestures

"The gestures of an adult are those of a carpenter, the gestures of an infant those of a mason."

--Malcolm de Chazal.

Bellmen

A kind of town crier, who announced each passing hour in the night by ringing a bell and calling out the hour.

“None can forever conceal the truth. If the bellman is dead the wind will toll the bell.”

Bernard Malamud, The Fixer (1966).

A Daring Hero

"The virtues of industry and frugality can easily be corrupted to make men overscrupulous and stingy, as in the example of Moemon, who economized on his coat sleeves, would not buy a hat when he came of age to wear one, and slept with an abacus under his pillow to keep track of the money he made in dreams. But, somewhat like Gengobei, Moemon is one minute a ridiculous clerk and the next a daring hero who runs off with the most beautiful lady in town."

Wm. Theodore De Bary in the introduction to Ahira Saikaku, Five Women Who Loved Love (1686).

Arch Makers

Originally, a Roman worker who specialized in building rounded vaults or archways, arches being a Roman invention.

"The great latifundia had their own ceramic workshops producing pots for everyday use (opus doliare). Artistic pottery, on the other hand, was made in the towns, especially in Arezzo where production was constantly on the increase, but also at Mutina (Modena), Pollentia, Cumae, Capua, Rhegium and others. There were also many brick factories, for bricks were widely used for building in the Italian towns. The various crafts of the building trade were also to a large extent differentiated into lime burners (calcis coctores), masons (structores), makers of arches (arcuarii), builders of interior walls (parietarii), plasterers (albatrii) and many others."

Claude Mossé, The Ancient World of Work (1969)

[Translated by Janet Lloyd].

Senators

A legislator in ancient Rome.

"'To go to bed with your worthy host's wife would be a disgraceful failure in good manners. On the other hand, there's no reason why you shouldn't try to seduce Fotis; the girl is not only beautiful, lively and amusing but already half in love with you. Last night when you went to bed, she led you to your room, turned your sheets down, tucked you tenderly in, then gave you a charming good-night kiss and showed quite plainly how sorry she was to leave you. Remember how she kept stopping on her way to the door and looking back at you? The very best of luck to you, then, Lucius; but, whatever may come of it, good or bad, my advice is: go for Fotis.' My mind was now made up, and when I reached Milo's house I marched in as confidently as a Senator leading the Ayes into the division lobby."

Apuleius, The Golden Ass, (2nd Century A.D.)

[translated by Robert Graves].

Swearer

Someone who administers an oath.

"I am not a swearer in of people, man."
Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend (1865).

Fine, Unmarked Paper from the Royal Provisioner

The person who maintained storehouses of provisions for the royal household.

"The princess had had scrolls of the holy writ copied for each of the Six Worlds. Genji himself had copied a sutra for her own personal use, and asked in the dedication that, having thus plighted their troth, they be permitted to go hand in hand down the way to the Pure Land. He had also made a copy of the Amitabha Sutra. Fearing that Chinese paper might begin to crumble after frequent use, he had ordered a fine, unmarked paper from the royal provisioner. He had been hard at work since spring and the results quite justified his labors. A glimpse of an unrolled corner was enough to tell the most casual observer that it was a masterpiece. The gilt lines were very good, but the sheen of the black ink and the contrast with the paper were quite marvelous. I shall not attempt to describe the spindle, the cover, and the box, save to say that they were all of superb workmanship. On a new aloeswood stand with flared legs, it occupied a central place beside the holy trinity."

Murasaki Shikibu, The Tale of Genji (11th Century).

[Translated by Edward G. Seidensticker.]