Priscilla Galloway's Book Shelf
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Archers, Alchemists,

and 98 Other Medieval Jobs You Might Have Loved or Loathed
Barber-Surgeon
Copyist (Scribe)
Abbess
Cobler

Schoolmaster; Teacher
Jester or Fool
450 CE: The Roman Empire was kaput, finished, done. Vandals burned the ancient city of Rome, and Europe sank into the first half of the Middle Ages, the Dark Ages. Why "dark"? -------

The Middle Ages went on for about one thousand years ... until about 1500 CE.
from: Annick Catalogue Fall 2003 p.8
Archers, Alchemists and 98 Other Medieval Jobs You Might Have Loved or Loathed, by Priscilla Galloway, illustrated by Martha Newbigging, Annick, 96 pages, $16.95, ages 8 and up

Review by SUSAN PERREN, Globe and Mail, Children’s Books

Saturday, August 23, 2003 - Page D12

Among the jobs you might have loved or loathed in the late Middle Ages -- defined in this book as roughly between the Norman conquest (1066) and Columbus's discovery of America (1492) -- include cordwainer (shoemaker), chandler, almoner, pardoner, princess, fuller and gong farmer. A fuller finished cloth after it came off the loom by wetting the cloth by applying a mixture of fuller's earth (clay) and urine and walking on the material. A gong farmer harvested the gloves, jewellery, buttons or pennies he found while cleaning out cesspits and latrines.

This book is actually a social history of the late Middle Ages cleverly disguised as a book about job possibilities. Galloway delivers an extraordinary amount of juicy information in an enormously engaging way, and Newbigging's amusing illustrations provide another way to help get the "medicine" down without a hiccup.