skip.knox submitted a new blog post:
History for Fantasy Writers: Shoemakers
by E.L. Skip Knox
Most everyone knows the story of the shoemaker and the elves. The Grimm brothers gave us the version most of us know, and it begins this way:
There was once a shoemaker, who worked very hard and was very honest: but still he could not earn enough to live upon; and at last all he had in the world was gone, save just leather enough to make one pair of shoes.
That's the stereotype we have: shoemakers are poor and the cobbler is even poorer. Some were. But in the Middle Ages, they also had a reputation for being lazy, as witnessed by this bit of doggerel describing the work habits of shoemakers:
Monday is Sunday's brother
Tuesday also do they play
Wednesday they fetch the leather
Thursday they return again
Friday they cut it up
Saturday they make pants and shoes.
So, only one day a week of actually making shoes! Poor and honest, or lazy? Happily, fiction writers can have it both ways and six other ways besides. For some ideas, it pays to look at shoemakers in history, to see how they worked.
Shoemakers in just about every town were organized into guilds. Since demand for shoes was inelastic, one of the...
Continue reading the Original Blog Post.
History for Fantasy Writers: Shoemakers
by E.L. Skip Knox
Most everyone knows the story of the shoemaker and the elves. The Grimm brothers gave us the version most of us know, and it begins this way:
There was once a shoemaker, who worked very hard and was very honest: but still he could not earn enough to live upon; and at last all he had in the world was gone, save just leather enough to make one pair of shoes.
That's the stereotype we have: shoemakers are poor and the cobbler is even poorer. Some were. But in the Middle Ages, they also had a reputation for being lazy, as witnessed by this bit of doggerel describing the work habits of shoemakers:
Monday is Sunday's brother
Tuesday also do they play
Wednesday they fetch the leather
Thursday they return again
Friday they cut it up
Saturday they make pants and shoes.
So, only one day a week of actually making shoes! Poor and honest, or lazy? Happily, fiction writers can have it both ways and six other ways besides. For some ideas, it pays to look at shoemakers in history, to see how they worked.
Shoemakers in just about every town were organized into guilds. Since demand for shoes was inelastic, one of the...
Continue reading the Original Blog Post.