Archive for the ‘Forgotten Crafts’ Category
Forgotten Crafts: Lantern Lighter
Thursday, February 17th, 2011
Photograph Wikimedia Commons
Several years ago, I had the privilege to travel to Australia’s Outback. I remember gazing at the stars on a pitch black night. It is virtually impossible today to find a spot in the Netherlands that gets that dark at night. Here, civilization is never far away and with it its street lighting.
That makes it even harder to imagine that there indeed was a time that the Dutch night sky was as dark as that of the Australian Outback today. The reason for this was that there were no street lanterns. In the Middle Ages street lighting was an unheard of commodity. As a result, the nights were dangerous. In the dark it was easy to assault a traveler unseen and rob him of his valuables. The dark also made it hard to distinguish between the road and the many swamps just beside it, hence getting lost or drowning were real dangers too.
Thus the night was a scary time to be outside and people loved to frighten each other with awful stories by the fire about werewolves, vampires, evil elves and spirits that would lure you into the swaps and the like.
The first attempt to make the roads and streets safer at night was made in 1500s when larger cities as Amsterdam and The Hague first made it compulsory to carry a lantern at night and eventually decided to install public lanterns in their streets. These lanterns were fed with was candles and later with oil. By the late 1700s most big cities and smaller towns had followed the example and installed street lightening. With it a new occupation arose, that of lantern lighter. The lantern lighter would come out at dusk to fill and light the lanterns and again at dawn to extinguish them. It was a part-time job that was often combined with another one such as night watchman, town crier, barber and so on.
Around the 1870s gas lighting was invented, easing the job of the lantern lighter. Now, he just had to light and extinguish the lanterns, since the gas lamps needed no refilling. The gas lanterns were an improvement for the general public as well because they gave far more light than an oil lamp or candle. However, they did not last long. Already by the late 1880s they were replaced by electric lanterns. It was a true revolution that the street lanterns could now be switch on and off all at the same time at the push of a button. The first city in the Netherlands with electric street lighting was, surprisingly, Nijmegen. Other cities and towns followed soon after and with it the occupation of lantern lighter disappeared. The last Dutch lantern lighter retired in 1957. Most of his colleagues had stopped long before that.
Forgotten Crafts: Bladesmith
Thursday, October 14th, 2010
The armourer
Jan and Caspar Luyken, ±1690
In a time when streets were pitch dark at night, roads where anything but safe and disputes were handled man to man, everyone that could afford one, wanted one: a sword. Ever since man discovered iron, he used it to make weapons. In medieval times every knight was supposed to own a sword and, of course, know how to handle it. Later, after the introduction of firearms in the 15th and 16th centuries, the sword remained an important secondary weapon. After all, it was faster to use than firearms that needed reloading. It was also more effective in man-to-man battle. Only when firearms became fast and reliable in the late 1800s, did the sword lose its function. Today swords have a mere ornamental status, for example at military parades.
Owning a sword has always been a huge status symbol. Having one proved several things. Of course you were rich enough to buy yourself one. You were also strong and brave enough to handle it. And you were important enough to be allowed to own one. However, not only sword owners enjoyed a great status. The men who made them did too.
Sword making was the finest specialization a smith could choose. It demanded great skill and precision to make a sword that was strong, balanced, sharp, light and beautiful at the same time. Besides the fine metalworking, bladesmiths were skilled in woodworking for making the handles and leatherworking for producing the sword’s sheath. Bladesmiths were true masters in their guild and usually rewarded correspondingly.
Today few true bladesmiths exist. A small market remains for ornamental swords and a small group of specialists still learn the craft to cater to this market. However, the place of the old bladesmiths has been taken over by firearm makers.
Forgotten Crafts: Broombinder
Thursday, October 7th, 2010
Jan en Caspar Luyken, ±1690
The other day I was absorbed in writing in my office when all of a sudden I was disturbed by a horrible noise. I got up to have a look out of the window to see what that awful noise could be. It turned out to be the street sweeper with his latest fall gadget: a leaf blower.
With a sigh I sat down and my thoughts wandered off to the days when street sweepers would do just that: sweep the street, with a broom: tsssjk-tjssk-tsssjk. And if the good man was in a jolly mood he would whistle or sing a song. I would like that far better that this deafening noise.
But, in our age, there are no old-fashioned street sweepers anymore. Moreover, there are no real brooms anymore. I mean the good ones made of birch twigs. And there are no broombinders anymore either.
Broom making used to be good business. It started out as a side job to add to the family income in rural areas along with basket making. Over time, it became a real occupation with its own guild. Winter was the ideal season to pick the right birch twigs. Some broom makers would travel around and create a broom to your wishes at the spot. Others had their own shop. Especially in the eastern part of the Netherlands the industry flourished. Around 1900, the industry was at its peak, producing over 150,000 brooms and scrubbers a year. Ultimately, industrialization took over from the old handwork to keep up with demands.
Thanks to industrialization, everybody can buy a cheap, reasonably good broom nowadays. But frankly, who needs a broom these days? We vacuum our houses and we vacuum our gardens. We even vacuum” our streets. Very efficient, maybe, but I do miss the whistle and the tsssjk-tssjk-tsssjk-sound of the street sweeper.
