Designing Your Character & Other Handy Things 2

Medieval Tradesmen & Merchants

Moneyer: A person licensed by the crown to strike coins. He received the dies from the crown and was allowed to keep 1/240 of the money coined for himself.

Thane: Originally meaning a Military Companion to the King, a thane was a man holding administrative office.

Sherriff (from "Shire Reeve"): The chief administrative and judicial officer of a shire. He collected taxes and forwarded them on to the Exchequer, and was also responsible for making sure that the King's table was well stocked.

Apprentice: A boy studying a trade from a skilled master. Apprenticeship was a sort of bonded servitude in which a young boy is given to a master of a trade. The master is usually highly skilled at his job. The boy then learns the trade from the master. In return he does the master's grunt work. An apprentice had to pay a large sum of money just to start. His apprenticeship would last 7 years. Then he would become a journeyman.

Journeyman: A person who has served an apprenticeship (generally 7 years) at a trade or handicraft and is certified to work at it assisting or under another person. As a journeyman they worked for a daily wage. A journeyman could one day become a master, as long as he paid the right fees.

Master Craftsman: A person who practices or is highly skilled in a craft; artisan.

Artillator: Maker of bows, arrows, and other archery goods.

Bowyer: Bow maker.

Fletcher: Arrow maker.

Merchant: Merchants set up businesses in the towns that began to grow in the later Middle Ages. The most commonly traded items were salt, iron, and textiles. There were also rarer items, such as silk and spices, that came from the trade with China and the Middle East. As trade grew, a new class of highly skilled crafts- people developed. These artisans produced cloth, shoes, beer, glass and other goods that required more expertise than was available on many manor farms. Other artisans cut and shaped the stones. Women plied several of these crafts, and in some, like weaving and brewing, they played the leading role. Traveling merchants brought much-desired items to small towns and villages far from the major trade routes.

Peddler: Travelling merchants who sold their goods from town to town.

Merchants:

            

Acater - a provisioner (food)

Alewife - a female alehouse keeper

Apothecary - a preparer and merchant for drugs and medicines

Banker

Beer seller

Boothman - one who sells grains

Chapman - travelling merchant

Collier - one who makes or sells charcoal (later coal) [can also fit under craftsmen]

Colporteur - seller of religious books

Costermonger - fruit seller

Drover - one who drives sheep or cattle to market

Eggler - an egg-merchant

Fishmonger

Fruiterer - a seller of fresh fruit

Fruitier - fruitseller

Fueller - one who sells charcoal, wood, or other fuels

Glass seller

Greengrocer - seller of vegetables and fruits

Grocer

Harberdasher - seller of men's clothing

Hay merchant

Hetheleder - one who sells heather as fuel

Innkeeper

Ironmonger - one who sells things made of iron

Lighterman - one who ferries goods from ship to shore on a small boat

Linen-draper - one who deals in linens, calicos, etc.

Mercer - a dealer in expensive clothing (silk, etc.)

Merchant

Milkmaid - a female servant who milks cows

Oil merchant

Old-clothes dealer

Oynter - an oil-merchant

Peddler

Pie seller

Plumer - a dealer in feathers

Poulter - seller of poultry

Shrimper - one who catches shrimp

Skinner - a dealer in furs and skins (essentially, the same thing as a furrier)

Spice merchant

Spicer - grocer or dealer in spices

Stationer - seller of books, etc.; also, a copyist

Saverner - innkeeper

Thresher - one who thrashes grain, separating it from straw

Unguentary - one who sells unguents

Waferer - confectioner (a dealer in 'wafers', a kind of cake)

Waterseller

Weirkeeper - a keeper of fish traps

Wine seller

Wood seller

Woodmonger - a seller of fuel wood

Wool stapler - one who buys and sells wool wholesale

(Found on http://musicians4freedom.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Medieval-People.pdf &http://www.svincent.com/MagicJar/Economics/MedievalOccupations.html#Merchants)