Larderer and Bishop

Someone in charge of a larder or the storage of a household's food.

"The Kynge has made another Roger whiche was his larderer, the bishop of Herforde."

John Bale, The Actes of Englysh Votaryes (1550).

Cordwainer

A worker in cordovan leather (i.e., tanned goatskin or horse hide). A shoemaker.

“‘Well, what's the matter with you? Sit down “and give your foot to the Gentleman.”’ In fact, my dear friend, the Gentleman was a Cordwainer. I can't tell you how embarrassed I was: fortunately, only Mother was there to see. When I'm married, I don't think I will use this particular Cordwainer any more."

[“‘Eh bien, qu’avez-vous? Asseyez-vous “et donnez votre pied a Monsieur.”’ En effet, ma chere amie, le Monsieur etait un Cordonnier. Je ne peux te rendre combien j’ai ete honteuse: par bonheur il n’y avait que Maman. Je crois que, quand je serai mariee, je ne me servirai plus de ce Cordonnier-la.”]

Chaderlos de Laclos, Les Liaisons Dangereuses (1782).

Assessor

Someone who assesses taxes or estimates the value of property or income for purposes of taxation.

"When therefore we were come within near half a day's sail of the port of Tramuend, in the territory of Luebeck, then the Keelmaster or Skipper made his reckoning according to custom, after which the Bailiff resigned the command which he had held with the following words: 'Whatsoever hath passed and befallen on shipboard all this time, each man should forgive to everyman his fellow, overlook it, and let it be dead and gone, even as I for my part am glad to do; for, whatsoever doom I and my assessors may have given, all must needs be so dealt and kept for judgment's and justice' sake. Wherefore I beseech all and singular, with regard to all our honest judgments, that each will lay aside such enmity as he may have conceived against another, and swear an oath by salt and bread that he will never more think bitterly of that matter."

T. D. Wunderer (1590) [Fichard, Frankfurtisches Archiv, Band II, S. 245].

Smith

Someone who tames hot metal with hammer and anvil.

"Thou smith, thou wilt shoe a steed with a shoe that is naught; and the beast will go perchance scarce a mile thereon when it is already broken, and the horse may go lame, or a man be taken prisoner or lose his life. Thou art a devil and an apostate; thou must go to the apostate angels. They fell not from one Order only, but from all ten Orders; and so fall many thousand from these nine Orders. The tenth is utterly fallen beyond recall; I bar no man from contrition and repentance, but, otherwise, such as beat out the long knives wherewith men slay their fellow men, such may use deceit or not, may sell dear or cheap as they will, yet for their soul there is no help."

Berthold von Regensburg, Tricks of Trade, Sermons (13th century).

Crusader

A Western European soldier who joined in one of the Crusades against the people of the Middle East.

“The taste for unbridled luxury culminated in the court fêtes. Every one has read the descriptions of the Burgundian festivities at Lille in 1454, at which the guests took the oath to undertake the crusade, and at Bruges in 1468, on the occasion of the marriage of Charles the Bold with Margaret of York. It is hard to imagine a more absolute contrast than that of these barbarous manifestations of arrogant pomp and the pictures of the brothers Van Eyck, Dirk Bouts and Rogier van der Weyden, with their sweet and tranquil serenity. Nothing could be more insipid and ugly than the ‘emtremets,’ consisting of gigantic pies enclosing complete orchestras, full-rigged vessels, castles, monkeys and whales, giants and dwarfs, and all the boring absurdities of allegory. We find it difficult to regard these entertainments as something more than exhibitions of almost incredible bad taste.”

J. Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages (1924).

Consul

One of two annually elected magistrates who together ruled the Roman Republic. The head of a group of merchants. A foreign official. Someone who works for a foreign government in another country's town or port.

"Yes, I was happy when First Consul, at my marriage, at the birth of the king of Rome--but at those times I was not confident enough in myself. Perhaps it was at Tilsit. I had suffered reverses, I had had worries--at Eylau, for instance--and suddenly I found myself victorious, laying down the law, courted by emperors and kings. Perhaps I actually felt greater satisfaction after my victories in Italy. What enthusiasm! What shouting! 'Long live the liberator of Italy!' At twenty-five! From that moment I foresaw what I might be. Already I felt the earth flee from beneath me, as if I were being carried to the sky!"

--Napoleon, quoted in Herold, The Mind of Napoleon (1955).

Supernumerary

An extra on a ship, in an army, or on stage (with no lines to deliver).

"I sunk to be a supernumerary for one shilling a night at one of the theatres."

Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London poor (1851).

Flagman

A signaler who uses a flag. A flag officer in the navy, that is, an officer who commands an entire fleet or squadron, and who flies a flag indicating his rank, either as an admiral, vice-admiral, or rear admiral.

"To the office, where busy all day; and in the evening Sir W. Pen come to me, and we walked together and talked of the late fight. He told me that our very commanders, nay, our very flag-officers, do stand in need of exercising among themselves; and discoursing the business of commanding a fleete, he telling me that even one of our flag-men in the fleete did not know which tacke lost the wind or which kept it, in the last engagement. He did talk very rationally to me, insomuch that I took more pleasure this night in hearing him discourse than I ever did in my life in any thing that he said."

Samuel Pepys, Diary (July 4, 1666).

Barthes on the Historian

A writer or author of a history, especially one who produces a work of history in the higher sense, as distinguished from the simple annalist or chronicler or events, or from the mere compiler of a historical narrative (OED).

“Michelet afflicts himself with the most terrible historical diseases, he takes them on himself, he dies of History the way one dies—or rather the way one does not die—of love. ‘I have drunk too deep of the black blood of the dead’—this means that, with each migraine, Michelet renews in himself the death of the People-as-god, of History-as-god. But at the same time this death survived and repeated acts as a nutriment, for it is this death which constitutes Michelet as a historian, makes him into a pontiff who absorbs, sacrifices, bears witness, fulfills, glorifies.”

Roland Barthes, Michelet (1954).

[Translated by Richard Howard]

Grocer

One who buys and sells in the gross, (i.e. in large quantities). A wholesale dealer or merchant. A trader who deals in spices, dried fruits, sugar, and in general, all articles of domestic consumption except those that are considered the distinctive wares of some other class of tradesmen (OED).

"The grocers are plentifully blessed, for

their figs and raisins, may attract fair lasses."

Pennyless Parliament, in Harley (1608).

Castellan

A governor or warden of a fort or castle.

“It would hardly be possible to quote in the literature of the fifteenth century another work giving as sober a picture as Le Jovencel of the wars of those times. We find the small miseries of miltary life, its privations and boredom, gay endurance of hardships and courage in danger. A castellan musters his garrison; there are but fifteen horses, lean and old beasts, most of them unshod. He puts two men on each horse, but of the men also most are blind of one eye or lame. They set out to seize the enemy’s laundry in order to patch the captain’s clothes. A captured cow is courteously returned to a hostile captain at his request. Reading the description of a nocturnal march, one feels as though surrounded by the silence and the freshness of the night. It is not saying too much that here military France is announcing herself in literature, which will give birth to the types of the ‘mousquetaire,’ the ‘grognard,’ and the ‘poilu.’ The feudal knight is merging into the soldier of modern times; the universal and religious ideal is becoming national and military. The hero of the book releases his prisoners without a ransom, on condition that they shall become good Frenchmen. Having risen to great dignities, he yearns for the old life of adventure and liberty.”

J. Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages (1924).

Foreign Taker

An officer of the City of London who supervised open street markets and had the responsibility of cleaning up after them.

"Formerly, before the great Fire there were these Officers, Viz. a Serjeant and Yeoman of the Channel, and Yeoman of Newgate Market, and Foreign Taker, whose Office was to sweep and make clean the said Streets, where the Market People resorted, and to carry away the Soil thereof, and to furnish the Market People with Boards and such like Accommodations. But since Markets are removed out of the Streets these Officers retain only the Names."

John Strype, Stow's Survey of London (1720).

Preceptor

A tutor. Any monk of sufficient learning to act as a preceptor. In the Shingon and Tendai sects a specific clerical rank.

"The abbot was an intimate of the Reizei emperor and had been his preceptor as well. One day, visiting the city, he called upon the Reizei emperor to answer any questions that might have come to him since their last meeting. 'Your honored brother,' he said, bringing the Eighth Prince into the conversation, 'has pursued his studies so diligently that he has been favored with the most remarkable insights. Only a bond from a former life can account for such dedication. Indeed, the depth of his understanding makes me want to call him 'the saint who has not yet left the world.'"

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

Translated by Edward G. Seidensticker.

Dramatist

A playwright.

"The historian, essentially, wants more documents than he can really use; the dramatist only wants more liberties than he can really take."

Henry James.

Blackmailer

Originally, someone who gathered "black-mail," (i.e., protection money demanded of farmers and small landowners in the border counties of England and Scotland, by freebooting chiefs, in return for being left alone). Now someone who earns a living off others' mistakes.

"Were I to lose all my fortune, I could, by turning black-mailer, ensure a permanent income twice as large."

Julian Hawthorne, The laughing mill and other stories (1879).

Fish Monger

A purveyor of the denizens of the deep.

“Psmith was conscious of a feeling of distinct gratification. Weeks of toil among the herrings of Billingsgate had left him with a sort of haunting fear that even in private life there clung to him the miasma of the fish market. Yet here was a perfectly unprejudiced observer looking squarely at him and mistaking him for a poet—showing that in spite of all he had gone through there must still be something notably spiritual and unfishy about his outward appearance.”

P. G. Wodehouse, Leave It to Psmith (1924).

Kennel-raker

A scavenger. Someone who collects things from the gutter.

"Those gaudy Upstarts no more prize I doe Than poorest Kennell-rakers."

Wither, Motto (1621).

Assassin

Certain Moslems in the time of the Crusades, who were sent forth by their sheikh, the 'Old Man of the Mountains,' to murder the Christian leaders. Now used chiefly of the murderer of a public personage, who is generally hired or devoted to the deed, and aims purely at the death of the victim (OED).

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

Tacitus, Histories (100 AD).