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Author Topic:   armourers and falconers
amber03
Member
posted 03-10-2003 06:48 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for amber03     Edit/Delete Message
I found a book with good pictures of all the people who live in a castle. Problem is, it doesn't have job descriptions of some of the people pictured. I've figured out what most of the people do, but the armourer and falconer have me stumped. By the way, I looked through old posts. The only place they were mentioned was in an old post of mine and that did not give me an answer. Please Help.

Erik Schmidt
Senior Member
posted 03-12-2003 05:16 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Erik Schmidt   Click Here to Email Erik Schmidt     Edit/Delete Message
Most castles would have had a falconer, but not all an armourer.
During the middle ages, hunting was a very major passtime(sport) for the lords. One of the ways of hunting, especially quail, other birds and rabbits was to use trained falcons to get them. The falconer was the person employed to train and look after the falcon(s) which belonged to that lord.

The armourer would be employed by wealthy knights too look after their armour and sometimes also to make armour. It is likely that few armourers, especially after the 14th century, could make all the various parts that went into a full harness, and the armour was often made in large workshops a long way away. A lot of armour was made in southern Germany and espacially nothern Italy and was sold all over Europe. An armourer belonging to a castle(actually would have worked for the lord of the castle) would have mostly just kept the rust off it, replaced rotting or damaged leathers, made sure cloth parts were renewed when needed, replaced rivets when needed, made simple repairs to the metal plates and mail and possibly personally responcible for arming(dressing a person in armour) his lord.
Some lords or knights owned a lot of armour for supplying soldiers or knights and probably needed an armourer. Other knights had only their own and would have had their squire look after it.

Erik

Gordon
unregistered
posted 03-12-2003 08:02 AM           Edit/Delete Message
The Tranter was the man trained to retrive the falcons and their catch.
The Fletcher made the flights for the arrows.
The Mason built with stone.
The Smith worked with metal...blacksmith = iron, siversmith, goldsmith etc.
The Porter......the Sergeant....the Constable..and so on. All occupations with castle connections which resulted in surnames. Not all castles could afford such a wealth of manpower of course, many of these people were travelling workers or were only present for part of the castles life..e.g the Mason when it was being built or repaired.
http://www.castlesontheweb.com/quest/Forum1/HTML/000033.html

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[This message has been edited by Gordon (edited 03-12-2003).]

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