Tolle Liste mit Jobbezeichnungen aus dem Mittelalter. Am besten freilich die Kriminellen und von denen finde ich die Silk-Snatcher am besten. Die haben den feinen Damen die Hauben vom Kopf geklaut.
Wherever there is society, there are criminals. These occupations include only the so-called “professional criminal”: it ignores those people who are corrupt at every level of society who has a legal “front”, from kings to beggars.
boothaler – marauder, plunderer
burglar – one who breaks into, and steals things from, other people’s houses. (If you break into and steal stuff from your own house, you’re just a nut.)
diver – fig. a pickpocket
fence – one who trades in stolen goods
footpad – one who robs pedestrians
outlaw – a man wanted by the law
pickpocket – one who picks pockets
poacher – one who illegally kills animals, usually on somebody else’s land
silk-snatcher – one who steals bonnets
stewsman – probably a brothel keeper – “since the words stew and stewholder both mean a bawd, I’m guessing that a stewsman would be a brothel-keeper as well. Whether bawdry counts as a criminal activity varies at different times and places.”
thimblerigger – a professional sharper who runs a thimblerig (a game in which a pea is ostensibly hidden under a thimble and players guess which thimble it is under)
