19 Gruesome Historical Jobs I’m Glad I’ll Never Have To Do

Chances are you own at least one woollen item, but you probably haven’t thought about how intensive the process of turning sheep’s coats into clothing is. You know who was very aware of the labour involved, though? Fullers, who worked throughout history from Ancient Rome to 15th century England. Untreated wool is oily, greasy, and dirty, and it has a coarse and scratchy finish that’s way too harsh to wear. Back in the day, fullers used to soften the fibres by trampling over them in vats filled with aged urine (side note: old pee used to be used for everything from whitening teeth to softening leather). The ammonia-rich environment really did banish the grease from wool, but it meant that somebody had to spend up to eight hours trampling up and down in a bucket of foul fluid!

You know those people who remove and replace tyres on Formula One cars faster than most of us can drive? Well, an arming squire was basically the Medieval equivalent of that! Their job involved maintaining, fixing, and applying a knight’s armour, sometimes mid-battle (and no, they didn’t wear any armour themselves as they rushed into the scuffle). To add insult to injury, arming squires also had to remove the blood, sweat, mud, and other mess from the armour after a fight – oh, and of course they were given aged urine as a cleaning agent.

Their job included gutting and salting herrings at record speed for up to fifteen hours (they were paid per barrel, so the faster workers made more money). Herring girls would try to protect their hands from the inevitable cuts that come from handling sharp knives and bones by using cloths and flour, but it didn’t work and injuries would often become infected. As if all that wasn’t enough, the workers would be denied access to hotels and even their own homes thanks to the foul smell of fish!

When you think of Tudor achievements, a few things might come to mind: gorgeous dresses, glamorous knights, and stunning houses, for example. Plumbing, however, was not a great feature of the age – in fact, most people did their business in communal latrines called cesspits. Of course those massive piles of vile substances didn’t clean themselves, and seeing as parts of London only had 16 latrines per 30,000 people in the 14th century the job of waste removal became vital! Gong farmers were hired to take the mess away at night, charging local councils two measly shillings per tonne of removal. The dangerous job was brimming with bacteria, and it sounds like it might just have been one of the smelliest tasks of the day!