Monday, April 06, 2020
Storing skills
Looking around for the next Ancestral Clock to animate, ran into this account of a cathedral clock maintainer in 1286:
We now come to a consideration of the first of the wheel-clocks that were seen in England. In the 'Compotus Bracerii' of St. Paul's Cathedral, London, for the year 1286, the allowances to "Bartholomo Orologiario," the clock-keeper, are entered, namely, of bread, at the rate of a loaf daily, for three-quarters of a year and eight days, two hundred and eighty-one panes. And we also find therein an item, " Bartholom' oroloci.' post adventum Willielmi de Pikewell, xxiii. bollee," or bottae, that is botta, a liquid measure, probably of beer.Those folks knew how to STORE SKILLS. A clock maintainer didn't work hard, but he needed to be there with clocklike regularity to wind and oil the machine, and he was urgently needed when the clock stopped. So he was given bed and bread and beer. No gig arrangement, no outsourcing. Sounds good to me. More broadly: Recent historians have debunked the idea that pre-industrial people were overworked. Feudal peasants worked hard when necessary for farming, and generally relaxed the rest of the year. The myth of feudal overwork was intentionally fabricated by the industrialists of London and NYC to fool their slaves who were genuinely worked to death. The same myth was applied to Southern agrarian slavery, to prevent the Northern industrial slaves from noticing that the Southern slaves had lifetime security.
Labels: skill-estate, storage
¶ 2:58 PM
