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The Worst Jobs In History with Tony Robinson - Complete Series 1 (2004)
The Worst Jobs In History - E01 - The Dark Ages.avi.avi 348.39 MB
The Worst Jobs In History - E02 - The Middle Ages.avi.avi 348.62 MB
The Worst Jobs In History - E03 - The Tudors.avi.avi 349.06 MB
The Worst Jobs In History - E04 - The Stuarts.avi.avi 349.12 MB
The Worst Jobs In History - E05 - The Georgians.avi.avi 349.29 MB
The Worst Jobs In History - E06 - The Victorians.avi.avi 348.91 MB
From the Roman invasion to the reign of Queen Victoria, there have always been plenty of gruesome and stomach-turning jobs to do.
The Dark Ages
The Guillemot Egg Collector
Farming could be unpredictable and food scarce, so guillemot eggs were an important source of protein in the Saxon peasant’s diet. The only trouble being that guillemots nest
on ledges, precariously balanced on cliff sides, so collecting them meant risking life and limb hundreds of feet above jagged rocks and raging seas. And if this wasn’t
dangerous enough, angry birds were likely to attack anyone trying to steal their precious eggs.
The Churl
In Anglo-Saxon times, the churl, or peasant, came lowest down the pecking order. His job was farming a small piece of land keeping his family alive on the food he produced.
Ploughing the land with oxen and a wooden plough was essential but difficult and backbreaking work. On top of farming, the churl had to put a roof over his head, which meant
building a hut made of wattle and daub. Wattle was made of long, slender hazel branches that were painstakingly woven together to make walls and once these were in place the
daub was slapped on to stop the wind howling through. This was a messy, smelly job because daub is made from water, mud, straw and dung!
The Bog Iron Hunter
The Saxons needed vast quantities of iron for tools and weapons. The Bog Iron Hunter did exactly what his title says; he hunted for iron ore in bogs. In all weathers, he poked
around in soggy bogs trying to find up to 40kgs of ore a day for the smelters.
The Coin Stamper
There was no pay involved, just bed and board and particularly nasty punishments if he was tempted to steal the silver he was making into coins. Stealing just the shavings was
punishable with castration and if a whole coin went missing the guilty party’s hand was cut off and nailed to the workshop door!
The Monk
Monks didn’t live in monasteries during the Saxon period; they had to build their own wattle and daub huts, just like the churls, and farm the land to feed themselves. On top
of the daily grind, which literally meant grinding grain to make flour for the monk’s daily bread, they had to pray up to eight times a day, including during the middle of the
night. Monks also copied manuscripts in meticulous, tiny handwriting in freezing, draughty rooms, which made their bodies and eyes ache horrendously.
The Viking Warrior
Before they could rape and pillage, Viking warriors had to get from their homeland to Britain. This meant long voyages across stormy seas, rowing for hours on end. Life on
board a Viking ship was cramped and uncomfortable, wet and cold with no toilet facilities. Rather than sail round a headland, Vikings would often haul their ships across it,
with the help of wooden runners. The runners had to be greased to ease the ship along and the most common grease used was made from pulverised fish. Bearing in mind that the
fish had been kept for days after they were caught, this would have been an exceptionally smelly job.
The Middle Ages
The Fuller
Top of the list of worst jobs in the Middle Ages is the fuller, who washed out the grease and impurities from newly woven woollen cloth. The best way to do this was by putting
it in a big vat of stale urine, yes urine, and stomping on it for hours on end. The stench was obviously horrendous and, even though the job was mind-numbingly tedious, the
fuller couldn’t lose his concentration. Because the process also tightened the weave and thickened the cloth, if it wasn’t treated evenly for exactly the right amount of time,
the whole bale could be ruined. Once the cloth was ready, the Fuller rinsed it in clean water, carried it up a hill and stretched it out to dry on ‘tenterframes’, - the origin
of the phrase, ‘on tenterhooks’.
The Lime Burner
Lime was used for making building mortar, which was in demand for the cathedrals springing up all over the country. The lime burner had a thankless, if important, task,
heating chalk in a kiln at 1,100°C to make ‘quicklime’. The dust the quicklime produced could cause blindness and spontaneously combust and burn. If that wasn’t enough, the
carbon monoxide could make the worker dizzy and he could fall into the kiln with ease. Health and safety was obviously not a high priority in the Middle Ages!
The Treadmill Operator
This was definitely not a job for vertigo sufferers and was often done by the blind. Imagine a giant hamster wheel, precariously balanced at the highest point (up to 50m) of
an almost built cathedral and you’ve got an idea of what a treadmill looked like. The operator would trudge for hours, turning the treadmill, which moved the winch on a crane.
It was monotonous and dangerous because, if the treadmill was damaged by the weather or badly constructed, it could come crashing down.
The Arming Squire
This job was a cross between a roadie, caterer and lavatory attendant. The arming squire looked after his knight’s every need, offering him all the comforts of home during
travelling army campaigns. This meant dressing, feeding and waiting on his master, as well as taking care of all his belongings on the ‘baggage train’, trudging for miles
every day before setting up camp. But the worst bit was undoubtedly cleaning the knight’s armour after a heavy day on the battlefield. On the outside there was mud and blood,
but the inside was far worse. Knights didn’t get toilet breaks during battle, so the arming squire had to clean what could be described as a big, metal nappy. To add to this,
water was too precious to be used for cleaning so the squire would use a mixture of sand, vinegar and a little urine to clean.
The Leech Collector
These poor unfortunates collected leeches - used for medicinal bloodletting - by wading into marshes and letting the little bloodsuckers cling to their legs. One leech is
uncomfortable; imagine pulling a whole bucketful off your body! The wounds often became infected and bacteria from the leeches could cause nasty stomach upsets.
Tudor and Stuart
The Woad Dyer
Woad dyers were highly skilled craftsmen, but enjoying their profits was difficult, because no one wanted to come anywhere near them. It wasn’t their permanently blue-stained
hands that put people off, but the dreadful stink - a bit like rotting boiled cabbage mixed with sewage - which hung around them wherever they went. Woad was the plant used to
dye wool blue, a colour much in demand at this time, but the process was messy and smelly and the by-products were noxious and difficult to dispose of. The rest of society
despised woad dyers; Queen Elizabeth decreed that no woad should be dyed within five miles of her royal person!
The Violin String Maker
Vegetarians definitely need not apply for this job. The violin string maker needed a strong stomach as he turned the lower intestines from a sheep into strings fit for a
Stradivarius. Pet lovers will be pleased to hear that it was sheep and not catgut that was actually used. The violin string maker sliced open the sheep’s stomach, being
careful not to damage the precious intestines. The fatty tissue, blood vessels and bile were removed and the intestines cleaned. The thicker bits went off to make sausage
skins and the thinner ends were twisted together and dried to make strings. The whole job was skilful but tedious and very messy.
The Gong Farmer
The gong farmer was the Tudor equivalent of a modern mobile toilet attendant. It was his job to empty the privies (a row of holes in a wooden plank over a tank) of private
households. Once the farmer’s vat was full of ‘gong’ (dung), he carted it outside the city walls. The job was so unsavoury that gong farmers were only allowed to work during
the night and were forced to live together in designated areas. When tobacco arrived in this country most gong farmers became heavy smokers to mask the gut-wrenching pong of
the gong!
Searchers of the Dead
It sounds like the title of a bad horror movie, so imagine what the job description was like! Searchers of the dead sought out plague victims. Once they were identified, the
house would be boarded up and the rest of the family quarantined. If you spent your time visiting plague-ridden households, chances were you’d catch it yourself, so the job
wasn’t a sought-after position. Searchers of the dead were mostly older women, destitute but with enough medical knowledge to spot plague victims. The pay wasn’t great at the
best of times, about four pence per body, but prices plummeted during the Great Plague, because the authorities couldn’t afford to pay for the hundreds of people dying
everyday.
The Executioner
Wearing a hood or mask didn’t fool anyone - the Executioner was a well-known and despised man. He had to deal with rioting crowds, as well as the blood and gore involved with
beheadings - and it was even his job to parboil victims’ heads and put them on stakes. It’s no wonder that many executioners eventually committed suicide.
